FROM ROMANCE 
TO REALITY 



mm 



-. 

HENRY CLAY MABIE.D.D., LL.D 




Class 11 

Book. 



GopigM - 



CCEfRIGHT DEPOSm 






'; 






Books by HENRY C. MABIE 



HOW DOES THE DEATH OF CHRIST 

SAVE US? 12mo, cloth .... $.50 net 

THE DIVINE RIGHT OF MISSIONS, 

12mo, cloth 50 u 

THE TASK WORTH WHILE; or, THE 
DIVINE PHILOSOPHY OF MIS- 
SIONS, 12mo, cloth 1.25 " 

UNDER THE REDEEMING AEGIS, 

12mo, cloth 75 " 

THE RATIONAL GROUNDS OF THE- 
ISM, 12mo, paper 35 " 

METHOD IN SOUL- WINNING, 

12mo, cloth 75 " 

THE MEANING AND MESSAGE OF 

THE CROSS, 12mo, cloth .... 1.25 " 

THE DIVINE REASON OF THE CROSS, 

12mo, cloth 1.00 " 

FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY, 

12mo, cloth, illustrated 2.00 " 

THE KINGDOM WITHOUT A TREMOR 

( Holland Lectures), 12mo, cloth . . 1.00 " 

To be had from all leading Booksellers, 
or of the Author, at Roslindale, Mass. 



FROM ROMANCE 
TO REALITY A A 

THE MERGING OF A LIFE 
IN A WORLD MOVEMENT 

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



BY 

HENRY CLAY MABIE, D.D., LL.D. 

AUTHOR OF "IN BRIGHTEST ASIA." "THE 
TASK WORTH WHILE," "METHOD IN SOUL- 
WINNING." "THE MEANING AND MES- 
SAGE OF THE CROSS. " "HOW DOES 
THE DEATH OF CHRIST SAVE US?" 
"THE DIVINE RIGHT OF MISSIONS," 
"THE DIVINE REASON OF THE 
CROSS." "UNDER THE RE- 
DEEMING AEGIS." "THE 
KINGDOM WITHOUT A 
TREMOR," Etc. 



BOSTON 

PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR 

MCMXVII 



Copyright. 1917 > t\ v; 

Henry Clay Mabie / ^£C|X . n \ * 



MAY 28 191/ 



©CI.A462711 



INSCRIBED TO MY DEAR WIFE, 
EDITH ROE MABIE, 

whose life from childhood has been so insep- 
arably and unostentatiously mingled with my 
own as to impart undying inspirations, and to 
the mother of my several children who rise 
up to call her blessed, as they are the abid- 
ing joy and pride of their father's heart 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Foreword 9 

IN TUTELAGE 

I Westward Ho ! 15 

II Heaven About Us in Our Infancy 20 

III 'Trailing Clouds of Glory" 28 

IV An Argosy from Oversea 33 

V The Ministry of Books 42 

VI College Inspirations 47 

VII The Grip of a Great Convention 56 

IN THE PASTORATE 

VIII My Novitiate 65 

IX Introduction to New England 75 

X Replanted in the Middle West 83 

XI My Jabbok and Peniel 89 

XII First Visit to Europe 97 

XIII Two Decisive Chapters in a Life-course. 104 

XIV First Ecumenical Conference 115 

IN A SECRETARIAL SPHERE 

XV A New Function 127 

XVI Off to the Mission Fields 132 

XVII In the Sunrise Kingdom 136 

XVIII In the Celestial Empire 146 

XIX In the Land of Judson 156 

XX On the Indian Continent 170 

XXI In Egypt and Palestine 187 

XXII Home Movements and Methods 196 

XXIII Outstanding Episodes 205 

5 



CONTENTS 



XXIV 

XXV 

XXVI 

XXVII 



XXVIII 

XXIX 

XXX 

XXXI 

XXXII 

XXXIII 

XXXIV 

XXXV 

XXXVI 

XXXVII 



PAGE 

northfield days . 218 

Literary Products 226 

The Co-ordination Movement 240 

Official Retirement 252 

IN YET WIDER RELATIONS 

My Missionary Lectureship 267 

Again Afield : England 272 

On the Continent: Scandinavia and 

Russia 287 

A Winter in Germany 302 

France and Switzerland 320 

In Italy and Egypt 324 

In Bombay, Teluguland and Madras. . 335 

The Judson Centenary 347 

A Third Visit to China 363 

Japan and Hawaii — Homeward Bound 371 

Appendix A 385 

Appendix B 389 

Appendix C 391 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING 
PAGE 

Henry Clay Mabie, D.D., LL.D Frontispiece y 

Henry Clay M abie as a Boy 20" 

Charles Hill Roe, D.D 35" 

Edith Roe M abie 40 / 

The Old Chicago University 47" 

The Swiss Chalet at Roeburn 218 ' 



FOREWORD 

IT has sometimes been brought as a reproach against 
the inception of modern missions that it was attended 
with elements of romance. Such elements were inci- 
dental to the novelties of travel and residence in regions 
long inaccessible to the Western world. The tales of 
new conditions and picturesque environments doubtless 
seized the imagination of the unsophisticated and ad- 
venturous, and added to the sentimental attractiveness 
of Oriental situations. Probably some were superficially 
led to give themselves to the exploitation of these con- 
ditions. 

But even so, human nature in itself is so constituted 
as to respond to such situations. And this is not neces- 
sarily evil. Youth particularly takes roseate views of 
life. It is imaginative and eager to find approach to 
strange and distant peoples, and it is worthy of note 
that missionaries, as a rule, awake to their sense of a 
divine call early in life, a matter in itself highly provi- 
dential. 

Imagination, as a susceptibility and a power, is itself 
a foremost endowment of mankind. Without it there 
would be no creative faculty or inventive genius. The 
sense of the romantic grows out of these capacities, and 
is a legitimate source of mental and moral awakening. 
The susceptibility of the genus homo to sentiment is a 
noble possibility. It is the highway to something far 
worthier than sentimentalism. Without sentiment, life 
would be robbed of its chief incitements and inspirations. 

That certain stages of disillusionment must neces- 
sarily be passed in the school of life, and even religion, 
per se, is not ominous: it is essential to life's discipline. 
Moreover, the deeper insights are commonly reached 
through forms of disappointment preliminary to deeper 



FOREWORD 



things. "It is for chastening that ye endure." The 
most exalted stages of experience and being are reached 
through processes of trial. 

A sober second thought will remind us that much 
that has been called romance is, after all, the deeper 
and diviner exhilaration of the living martyr, such 
as is represented in the high testimonies of worthies like 
the Judsons, the Livingstones and the Patons. The ex- 
alted soul-conditions which characterize such, mark the 
divine survival in their subjects of the very resurrection 
life of Christ, issuing from crucial pains in fellowship 
with Christ. They signify the very highest sort of 
attainments in moral being. Surely the Schwartzes, the 
Morrisons, the Pattisons, the Binghams, and the heroes 
of the South Sea islands, were not mere romanticists. 

So the writer of the following pages frankly testifies 
that though in childhood the imagination was caught 
and sentiment roused, yet these were but initial stages 
to divinely intended processes and realizations involved 
in the plan of the whole, cherished by the Eternal for 
one life at least. If the adolescent stage had been other- 
wise, the mature life would have been reduced to a 
lower level. 

So long as reality in the end is reached, the more 
"romance" in the early awakening, the better. The 
chapters that follow one another in this volume cer- 
tainly would never have been written but for a spiritual 
dynamic incipient in childhood, as touching the matters 
dealt with. And in the opinion of the writer, most real 
achievement in *.ny form of living is usually preceded 
by an awakened, divinely fertilized youth. When the 
period of romance is no more, the race will cease to 
grow, to invent or to create, and reality itself will perish. 

For the real raison d'etre of this book one must look 
beyond the individual factor in the author's life. Were 
this all, even the realities emphasized would probably 
never have found expression in a book. 

In the providence of God, however, the writer 
has been thrown throughout his life into contact with 
so many personages of note, and through them into 

10 



FOREWORD 



touch with so significant movements in many lands, that 
it seems fitting that these be introduced into the narra- 
tives that follow, and allowed to figure as they may. 

Entirely apart from the personality of him who 
records the parts played by these men and movements, 
there are worths to be conserved for the church at 
large. These values started with high enthusiasm also ; 
and in their time and place came to realizations similar 
to the author's own, and congruous with them. Were 
these in the Christian and world-wide movements of the 
last century to remain unexpressed, "the very stones 
would cry out." Hence the record of the respective 
parts played and recorded in the following narratives. 

To the great Head of the church these chapters are 
committed in the hope that His blessing may attend them 
to the further extension of His Kingdom. 

Roslindale, Mass., April, 1917. H. C. M. 



11 



IN TUTELAGE 



13 



I 

WESTWARD HO! 

MY eyes first saw the light, June 20, 1847, in Bel- 
videre, Illinois. It was a favored spot in the heart 
of that garden of the old Northwest lying between 
Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. It became 
settled seventy-five years ago by people representing 
some of America's best blood. Because of the circum- 
scribed tillable areas farther East, these people migrated 
from New England, New York State, Pennsylvania and 
Ohio, into these great virgin tracts of the Mississippi 
Valley. The wondrous richness of those plains was 
simply awaiting the tickling of the ploughshare, the seed 
and the hoe, to "laugh with harvest.'' The large immigra- 
tions from North Europe and from the Celtic Isle, 
which in later years have so populated the country, were 
then less in evidence. 

These original American immigrants were character- 
ized by uncommon intelligence, enterprise, thrift and 
piety. But, while possessed of the best ideals of the 
East, they could no longer be content within the limits 
of their earlier habitat. They believed they could trans- 
plant their lives and their families into far better natural 
conditions. 

My parents, and many other family relatives, were 
among the sturdy adventurers of that excellent company 
who set out upon this early quest. Among the celebri- 
ties of the town familiar to my childhood were many 
who had gained social and business standing elsewhere, 
and some were destined to distinction on wider fields. 
Some were Government agents for public lands. Some 
were bankers and money-lenders ; several soon became 
United States Congressmen. With the oncoming of the 

2 15 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Civil War, one, Hon. Allen C. Fuller, became Adjutant 
General of the State, and another, Hon. Stephen A. 
Hurlbut, a major-general of distinction in the army, 
both appointees of President Lincoln, while others be- 
came colonels and lesser officers. Some became judges 
of courts, successful teachers of schools, and adorned 
many professions. 

And there were also brilliant women not a few, the full 
equal of their husbands. One of these aspired, perhaps 
with some hope, to becoming chief lady of the land in 
the White House. Moreover, such was the appreciation 
of culture in general that the rising town was at one 
time hopeful, among three or four rival towns in the 
Rock River Valley, of becoming the seat of the principal 
university of northern Illinois, afterwards located in 
Chicago, and now so richly endowed. 

My father was one of the large contingent from 
western New York to settle in this region of the West. 
Although born in Delaware County, New York, he took 
his journey from Castile, Wyoming County, with his wife 
and a babe in arms, in a prairie schooner, around the 
south shores of Lake Erie and Michigan to the town 
above mentioned. Chicago, at that time planted on piles 
amid the ooze of the Calumet and Chicago River flats, 
had a population of about ten thousand souls. My 
father used to tell of passing along through deep mud 
on what is now Lake Street. At one spot in the street, 
from a pool a little more slimy than the rest, there pro- 
jected a rail some three or four feet above the surface. 
On the top of this some wag had placed an old hat, and 
underneath it: "Caution! the horse and rider are both 
below." 

In reference to pioneer days in Chicago, my father 
also loved to picture the primitive proprietor of the first 
Tremont House — Crouch by name — as he would receive 
a party of guests, sometimes arriving in a lumber- 
wagon. Crouch would come running out of the tavern 
with a wood-bottomed chair to serve as a step, for the 
alighting of the party at the door, thus saving them from 
the mud while facilitating their descent. This is not ex- 

16 



WESTWARD HO! 



actly the Chicago Hotel, "de luxe/' of the present day. 

Beyond Chicago, in those days, were no railroads. 
The newly developing farming community eighty miles 
westward, of which my father was a member, in order 
to market their wheat, were obliged to haul it on 
wagons, and for long stretches, through a wet and miry 
country. And for the return trip the farmers would 
load with lumber for their primitive buildings and 
fences. To haul over the distance, going and coming, 
would consume a week or more for each trip. The 
farmers could only do this in groups, because their 
loaded wagons often would become stalled in quagmires, 
and teams needed to be "doubled up," or even quad- 
rupled, in order to pull the loads out on to more solid 
ground. 

As to railroads, my father and his elder brother were 
among the subcontractors to finish a section of one of 
the first roads west of Chicago — the one running through 
our town to Galena, on the Chicago & Northwestern 
line. It was rare sport for us youngsters to ride about 
on the "dump-boards" among the workmen with their 
many teams, or to court friendship with "Pat," the 
Hibernian, who brought the drinking-water for the men 
from the distant spring. 

In half a dozen other communities in the same region 
of northern Illinois, many family relatives of both my 
parents had settled. What old-time intervisitations oc- 
curred between these families ! The children were com- 
monly taken along and permitted closer acquaintance 
with their cousins. These visits generally occurred in 
the spring after crops were in, or in the autumn after 
the harvests were gathered, as James Whitcomb Riley 

"When the frost is on the punkin 
And the fodder's in the shock." 

And what dinners our mothers and aunts used to 
get up for our hungry palates — roast turkey, roast pig, 
chicken pies, fresh vegetables galore, mince pies, hickory 
and hazel nuts, popped corn, and all the other pristine 
dainties in which the growing child delights. I have 

17 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

only pity for the boy who has not grown up on a farm, 
with horses and colts to ride, with cattle and sheep to 
feed, and, in the long, crisp winters, the spelling-schools, 
sleighing parties, and, in summer, the running streams 
for fishing, not omitting the delights of the old "swim- 
min'-hole." 

In this home of my youth I became practised in all 
forms of horsemanship, manual labor and endless chor- 
ing. For two whole years I rode horseback from the 
home to the town school, summer and winter, daily, six 
miles each way, often "breaking" the young horses I 
rode, training them to a variety of paces, and laying in 
health and vigor for the tasks of the future. Everything 
I ever learned in that early farm apprenticeship from 
my sturdy yet sympathetic father, facing virgin condi- 
tions in soil, climate, surroundings or estate, has come 
in place in the years since, wherever I have wandered. 

Moreover, in all those early years my mind was 
brooding over possible problems in life, resisting taunt- 
ing suggestions from unbelieving neighbors. I recall 
how, noting differences between the sentiments they ex- 
pressed and those which characterized my home folk 
even, for days together, while harrowing in the spring 
wheat or ploughing corn, barefooted, or listening to the 
cooing of the prairie chickens, I would reason out evi- 
dences for the truth of the Christian religion, answering 
objections to the cornstalks as so many imaginary skep- 
tics. I was, from the beginning, "constitutionally a be- 
liever." I think the simplicity of life on that old farm, 
companion of my own thoughts, and of the very sheaves 
of grain I often pitched from the loaded wagon to my 
father laying them away in the stack, was my very best 
preparatory school, and a highly providential introduc- 
tion to the experiences narrated further on. 

Such was the type of life into the midst of which I 
was born in the new West. And ours was but one of 
many such communities athrob with the new civilization. 
There were others of similar type with which I came into 
touch in those childhood days in northern Illinois and 
southern Wisconsin. 

18 



WESTWARD HO! 



Moreover, at the very front in the activities of the 
new time, there was a class of stalwart, pioneer preach- 
ers who put a lasting stamp on the religious, social and 
political life of all that region; these all had migrated 
from the older East. Among them were the pioneer 
Baptist pastor of the first church at old Fort Dearborn, 
Chicago (A. B. Freeman, a home missionary before my 
time, of our own society), Elisha Tucker, J. C. Bur- 
roughs, Robert Boyd (a flaming evangelist preacher 
from Stirling, Scotland), W. W. Everts, Justin A. 
Smith (for a generation editor of the Standard) , E. J. 
Goodspeed, Galusha Anderson (yet with us), and M. 
G. Hodge, of Janesville; A. J. Joslyn, of Elgin; Charles 
Button, of Aurora ; Ichabod Clark, of Rockford ; Luther 
Lawrence, preacher and statesman, often in the Illinois 
Legislature; D. E. Halteman, of Marengo; S. G. Miner, 
of Bloomington (friend of Abraham Lincoln) ; J. V. 
Schofield and William Crowell, of Freeport; James 
Dixon, of Milwaukee; Wm. M. Haigh, pastor and gen- 
eral home missionary; Henry G. Weston, of Peoria; 
and, not least among them all, the redoubtable old-time 
evangelist, Elder Knapp, of Rockford, of everywhere, 
from Boston to the Mississippi River and even the 
Pacific Coast. During his last days he was often an 
attendant on my own early ministry in Rockford. These 
men among the Baptists were real pioneers, in an era 
that can never come again in similar creative form in 
this broad land. I am grateful to have been brought 
into the world at such a time, and to have upon me the 
impress of such personalities. 



19 



II 

HEAVEN ABOUT US IN OUR INFANCY 

THERE were a few outstanding influences most 
potent in my child life, of which I gratefully make 
mention. First of all was the very atmosphere of 
my own parental home. My parents, freshly come into 
a new country, it was plain, had not left their religion 
behind them, a circumstance for which I can never be 
too thankful. They were descended on both sides from 
a long line of godly progenitors. My father's tradi- 
tional ancestry was through Holland from the French 
Huguenots. His immediate ancestors came through 
Dutchess, Delaware and Wyoming Counties, New York. 
My father's great-grandfather was a relict of the Revo- 
lutionary War, with a traditional record of having once 
escaped from some British warship by swimming several 
miles in the waters of Long Island Sound. My father's 
grandfather w r as a pioneer preacher, the first of a long 
line of Dutch Reformed people to become a Baptist. 
He had the distinction of supporting himself by brick- 
making and coopering of barrels through the week, that 
he might on self-support preach the gospel on Sundays. 
From him, also, came down a heroic tradition, of the 
killing of a panther in the Catskills ; and these accounts 
often made my young blood tingle, as they were told out 
in winter evening tales to us children, by one or an- 
other of my father's aunts or uncles who had come into 
the country about the same time as my parents, and 
often sojourned with us. 

In my father's immediate family there were seven 
brothers and two sisters, mostly of uncommonly large and 
stalwart physique, long inured to out-of-door life and 
to manual toil. My Grandfather Jacob, with his sturdy 

20 




HEISRY CLAY MABIE AS A BOY 



OUT US IN Oi 



■e a 



mild life 

iigion 

for which I can never be 

ended on both sides from 

itors. My father's tradi- 

as through Holland from the French 

: ate- ancestor 
ire and Wyoming Countie York. 

.ad father was a relict 
: traditional record o 
e British warship 
: waters of Long Islan 

itch Refon ph. to beco 1 

; distil ing him brick- 

ugh the ■ 

mdays. 

a heroic, tradition, of the 

ounts 

aun 

! 



HEAVEN ABOUT US IN OUR INFANCY 

wife,* had followed his son from New York State, to 
domicile with him. They drove the whole distance in a 
comfortable covered buggy. The father and son were 
the builders of the first framed house on the brow of a 
hill overlooking a famous stretch of land embracing 
several thousand acres, four miles from Belvidere, 
known as "Squaw Prairie," and which had been quickly 
pre-empted by the enterprising immigrant Easterners. 
My mother's ancestry — the Saxtons — were as noted for 
devotional characteristics as my father's. There were 
seven in the family group, of which my mother was a 
rarely gentle and amiable member. She did much of 
her ethical teaching through referring to her saintly 
father's habit of enforcing all sorts of genial and neigh- 
borly admonitions by certain wholesome maxims : "My 
father used to say so and so." He would often say, "If 
you can not speak something good of your neighbors, 
say nothing." That settled it for her. Nothing in the 
community's life more troubled my mother than the 
evil-speaking and small talk of the neighbors' doings in 
critical allusion, which go so far to create and foster 
ill-will when it is reported to the parties concerned, as 
it is sure to be. I think no lesson I learned in the home 
nest went further with me in subsequent days to fore- 
stall party differences in the churches I served, than 
the remembrance of these gentle references of my 
saintly mother. Nine-tenths of the strifes and divisions 
that vex the church are due to this mischievous tattle 
to the disparagement of others. 

My mother's three brothers, Jacob, John and Asa, 
were also men of uncommon gifts and graces. John, 
in early life, was a sort of protege of the distinguished 
denominational leader and preacher, once of Buffalo and 
later of Chicago, Dr. Elisha Tucker, while a member of 
his church choir in Buffalo, before my uncle's migration 
to the West. For many years he was the most gifted 
deacon in our Belvidere Church; he had uncommon 
powers of expression respecting all things spiritual. 
His f elicitous and impressive phrases in prayer, whether 

* One Polly Tallman. 

21 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

at his own family altar, or in the church prayer-meet- 
ings, no one who ever heard, will forget. And when it 
came to the preparation of the annual church letter to 
the association, who like him could write it, and fill its 
every paragraph with the loftiest sentiment in Scrip- 
ture phrase ? These letters were always uncommon. Two 
sisters of my mother, each in their turn, became wives 
of two most devoted men, in the diaconate of several 
churches served; one, R. T. Mabie, father of Dr. 
John S. Mabie, of California, and the other, Nathaniel 
Crosby, of Belvidere and Janesville, Wisconsin. Mrs, 
Crosby in a second marriage became the wife of the 
Rev. Cyrenius M. Fuller, a gifted minister known in 
the early Baptist annals of Vermont, once also a suc- 
cessful "agent" of the American Baptist Missionary 
Union, and later, in his advanced years, a most winsome 
occasional preacher in Illinois and Wisconsin. On this 
Saxton side of our family house there was an embodi- 
ment of the more delicate, aesthetic and refined qualities, 
while on my father's side the more virile, positive and 
heroic note was always in evidence. 

Among the first deaths I ever witnessed, as a child, 
were those of both my grandmothers. My grandfathers 
I never saw, but the traditions of them that remained to 
their descendants were no doubt the chief and most 
valuable asset in the legacies left us. My father's father, 
although but a plain country deacon, was a man who 
impressed his fervor and religious zeal on all who knew 
him. He had a rare gift for friendship among his 
neighbors, and he so bore their spiritual interests on his 
great heart, that all his life he was a tactful soul-winner. 
He was a great believer in neighborhood prayer-meet- 
ings, and he himself was the central figure in them. 
Once in Chicago, when I was conversing with the late 
Mrs. D. Henry Sheldon, herself a woman of uncommon 
religious gifts, she suddenly inquired if I "ever saw my 
Grandfather Mabie." I answered "No," whereupon she 
said : "What a pity ! I saw him once, at my father's 
house [the Rev. Mr. Searle], when your grandfather 
and his wife were on their way from western Pennsyl- 

22 



HEAVEN ABOUT US IN OUR INFANCY 

vania to Illinois, and I can never forget him. He was 
the only man I ever saw who, when he knelt to pray at 
family worship, took off his coat. As a child I won- 
dered at it, but I ceased to wonder when he arose, for 
he was as wet with perspiration as if he had been 
dipped in the river!" I later repeated this account to 
my revered friend, Dr. Aaron H. Burlingham, in New 
York, whereupon the old veteran, with choking emotion, 
responded: "I have seen the old man scores of times 
take off his coat when he prayed in the old Portage 
schoolhouse prayer-meetings." It was in this very 
neighborhood that several of the Burlingham family, of 
a half-dozen or more members, were, through the old 
deacon's agency, led to Christ. A child bred amidst 
such family traditions as these would be obdurate in- 
deed not to respond early to the claims of religion so 
earnestly, sanely and yet genially commended. 

Another influence very deeply felt by me was the 
stock of neighborhood and religious traditions my par- 
ents had brought with them from the loved and revered 
"York State" home. It was to influences in Castile and 
Portage, and the region surrounding the picturesque 
Genesee Falls, that my parents always felt they owed 
so much. There they were schooled; there they were 
both converted, baptized and married by one Rev. James 
Reed, a man who held the pastorate in Castile for 
twenty-five consecutive years, and whose deep religious 
personality and typical convictions became impressed on 
a large community. Then there were scattered round 
about that section of western New York, other ministers 
also deeply revered in Castile. Among these were Elon 
Galusha, Harrison Daniels, H. K. Stimson (of the early 
"stage-coach" fame), Ichabod Clark, Hosea Fuller and 
Rev. Wm. Arthur, father of Chester A. Arthur, who 
later came to the Presidency of the nation. Under Mr. 
Arthur my father was converted, during a meeting held 
in the town of Perry, near Silver Lake. Some of these 
men betimes came on visits to the great West, and very 
often they and other "down East neighbors" became 
guests at my father's house; and their table-talk often 

23 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

filled with interest the shy lad whom they probably 
never suspected of taking notice. Ah! ye lares and 
penates of that old farmhouse home! how little ye knew 
of the worshipful attention ye there commanded, and of 
the philosophies ye were instilling into a silent mind 
more attentive and reverent than ye dreamed! 

On one occasion the famous colporter, Uncle John 
Vassar, put up at our "minister's tavern." He preferred 
to curl up for a night's sleep on a rug before an open 
fire on the hearth rather than occupy the best feather 
bed in the spare chamber. A picture, or a little book 
sometimes left behind, would stamp its lesson indelibly 
upon the infant mind. Here it was I found the home 
school more impressive, in its way, than many another 
more ambitious one I have since enjoyed. There en- 
during foundations were laid for faith in God, and in 
his purposes for all mankind. 

It was in connection with one of the old-time visits, 
that my parents so loved to make to their former York 
State friends, yet living over the line in southern Wis- 
consin, that occurred one of those childhood incidents 
that, early and ineffaceably impressed my moral and 
religious nature. At the time I was less than four years 
old. The morning my parents drove away on their 
visit a hundred miles distant, my older sister, nine years 
of age, took me with her for sisterly care to the country 
log schoolhouse, a mile and a half from home. The 
school hours passed, we started to wend our way home- 
ward. As we trudged on, suddenly a cyclonic thunder- 
storm arose. Neighbors whom we met, besought us to 
turn in with them until the storm-clouds passed. But 
my sister bravely said: "No, my mother charged me to 
come directly home with my little brother, and I am not 
afraid of the rain." As we walked rapidly on, we met 
two farmer neighbors running from a cornfield, hoes in 
hand, to a place of shelter; they also pleaded that we 
children should go with them. "No," replied my sister, 
and we hurried on. She removed her sun-bonnet to 
save it from the drops now falling fast. I began to 
cry from fear, but she comforted me with assurances of 

24 



HEAVEN ABOUT US IN OUR INFANCY 

God's care, in which she so implicitly trusted. Then 
the rain came in torrents. We were passing through an 
open gateway between two fields, yet a half-mile from 
home, when suddenly there came a bolt direct — a bolt 
which shivered the two gateposts to splinters, and my 
dear sister, who was carrying her bright tin dinner-pail 
upon her arm, an easy conductor for the lightning, fell, 
and I, supposedly, with her, except that, as I fell, the 
Providence that had taken her saw that I should fall 
into a rivulet of running water that ran beside the way. 
This apparently revived me. Yet for months afterward 
there remained stamped upon my body two black marks 
of the deadly lightning. Anxious relatives and neigh- 
bors, concerned the more for us that our parents were 
known to have left home that morning, soon found me 
bewildered in the storm, and cared for me and the body 
of my brave, dead sister.* 

Of course my parents were instantly followed by a 
messenger, and called immediately home to face the 
most biting sorrow of their lives. I have but dim 
memories of the pathetic funeral, and that of a younger 
sister who died later with seraphic songs upon her lips, 
but the effect I suppose of the oft-recited tragedies in 
our lonely home, and the incidental moralizings there- 
from, led me more and more to conclude that there was 
a divine purpose in my preservation, especially in the 
very moment of my older sister's removal. At all 
events, I have long believed that just as certainly as 
a similar experience in the youth of Martin Luther im- 
pressed him as singled out for some divine purpose 
worth while, so surely was T then called out of heaven 
to witness earnestly in His name — a "heavenly vision," 
to which I have ever felt charged to be "not disobedient." 
Even through a cataclysm like this, so peculiarly afflic- 
tive to my dear parents, I have long been able to trace, 
as did they also, how 

*Among these was a warm friend of my parents, a Mrs. Chester Car- 
penter, mother of a line of several worthy sons, who have since risen to 
Christian and business distinction in Omaha and other Western cities. Un- 
til her recent decease Mrs. Carpenter's interest in my life-history was 
scarcely less than that in one of her own sons. 

25 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

"Behind a frowning providence 
He hides a smiling face." 

Another of the impressive incidents of my early child- 
hood occurred in connection with a public missionary 
meeting to which my mother was wise and motherly 
enough to take me, when I could not have been more than 
four years old. She took me even though she knew I 
would probably curl up and sleep on her lap throughout 
the meeting, as I did. I remember a few things about that 
meeting, and chiefly this, that it is worth while to take 
young children to such meetings, even though they can 
not take in a sentence of what is said, and though the 
child sleeps throughout. When it awakes, it may see 
more in a minute than its elders have seen in an hour 
and a half. This is what I saw after my mother wak- 
ened me. The speaker was a tall, swarthy man, a med- 
ical missionary from the Hawaiian Islands, whose name 
was Judd, later a counselor of large influence to native 
princes in the islands. A hymn was sung; then a con- 
tribution-plate was passed round. When that plate came 
to my mother, I saw her slip a ring off her finger, and 
lay it on the plate in lieu of a little money not just then 
by her, and then observed that she wiped some hot tears 
from her gentle eyes. Then I knew that some great 
thing was going on, or my mother wouldn't do that. 
That ring was made from gold mined in California by 
two of her brothers, and given to a favorite sister-in- 
law. Shortly before this, I had seen this aunt of mine, 
on her dying-bed, give this keepsake to my mother; and 
with it a baby daughter but a few months old to be 
taken to our desolate home, to become a sister to me 
in place of the ones the Lord had caught away to the 
skies. The ring, therefore, was a precious memento 
to her. The baby cousin lived but a few weeks in 
our home, and then it also went — our little Lilian — 
to be with my two sisters, a deceased infant brother 
and the angels in the glory-land. Tell me that a 
child doesn't know what is going on amid scenes 
like those? Oh, how I suffered in the thought that no 
child except poor me could live long in my mother's 

26 



HEAVEN ABOUT US IN OUR INFANCY 

house! When, therefore, in the light of that child 
heartache, I saw my mother's self-denying act, I 
knew something uncommon had occurred in her soul. 
Moreover, it was doubtless out of such a child-ex- 
perience that there arose in my heart and imagination 
embryonic but real ideals, concerning Christian missions. 
These, however sacrificial — nay, because they are neces- 
sarily sacrificial — have been controlling with me ever 
since. Can the reader imagine the satisfaction with 
which, when I found myself in Honolulu a half -century 
or more later, on the first occasion en route to the Mor- 
rison Centenary Conference in Shanghai in 1907, and 
again, a second time, in returning from my last world 
tour in 1914, with my wife, I made special pilgrimages 
to the pretty cemetery amid the royal palms, to pay a 
heartfelt tribute to the memory of Dr. Judd, so centrally 
associated is his name with the deepest and most Chris- 
tian passions of my soul? That which is most moving 
to me is the thought that the eternal God so conde- 
scended to link an infant mind with such worthies of 
the past and with the very deepest movements of all 
history, and of the timeless order. Oh, my soul! let 
me to the very end come more and more into their great 
secret. 



27 



Ill 

"TRAILING CLOUDS OF GLORY" 

CLOUDS' may be contemplated as of other kind and 
serving other ends than those hinted by Words- 
worth. They may or may not bear in them sug- 
gestions of immortality. Although emanating from the 
earthly, they often seem let down from heaven, especi- 
ally as colored by the glories of an evening sunset. A 
most vivid recollection I can recall, in my childhood, of 
such a cloud-coloring after storm, associated in my mind 
with the first conscious realizations of the heavenly 
world, apparently doing its utmost to get recognition. 
If ours is a "thought-universe," such phenomena written 
upon the heavens must have been meant to idealize for 
us the forecourts of glory. The human soul, at all 
events, best rests in such glorious presentiments as har- 
bingers of the immortal and eternal, lying beyond the 
earthly. Viewed in this light, the coming into our earth, 
even for a brief season, of young lives, however short 
their course, may be looked upon as glory-clouds which 
the God of these immortals permits to trail along our 
horizon line for a little, intended to lure us away from 
things earth-born and material, in which, but for such 
removals, we would be likely to root too deeply. 

Many and natural are the human regrets expressed 
when mothers are called upon to give up their children 
to an early translation from earth. Nothing, indeed, is 
more pathetic ; and if we were to make up our life- 
philosophy merely from the half-side of a greater whole 
which earth and heaven compose, we might well repine. 
But not such is the divine estimate of things ; and often, 
in the retrospect, even our human vision can observe 
certain manifest values in the seeming losses. 

28 



"TRAILING CLOUDS OF GLORY" 

In my childhood, my mother was called upon to sur- 
render back to God three out of four of her precious 
children, and many were the well-meant commiser- 
ations bestowed upon her by those who saw not "the 
dim unknown," nor had the prophetic vision. Some one 
has said that our Lord has shown how deep is his ap- 
preciation of "the lilies of the valley," by the great num- 
ber of children he gathers into his heavenly home, and 
to his own nurturing care. It is certain he has said: 
"Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, 
for I say unto you that their angels do always behold 
the face of my Father which is in heaven." Surely he 
has great values for such seedlings in the heavenly 
garden. That there are great careers also ever opening 
to them there is as certain as the immortality of the 
human soul, however long or short may be their period 
in the propagating-bed. The ministries of such spirits 
to us who "here a little longer wait" are beyond all 
calculation. 

It is in this view that I wish now to record the 
moral values that came to me despite my great loneli- 
ness — nay, because of that very experience — that I now 
speak more particularly of these ministering spirits that 
were sent even to me. The first great loss I described 
in the previous chapter. It was that very loss, accen- 
tuated by the discrimination in God's providential care, 
that first made me aware of God as related to human 
life at all. , The recitation often made to me by my 
parents and others, of my prematurely developed sister's 
virtues and qualities, was a fertilizing influence. And I 
distinctly recall that at the time I was led to reflect upon 
taking my stand for Christ, the thoughts of that and 
one other sister in the glory-land were a luring influence 
drawing me powerfully on. It was this that enabled me 
also to rise above mere human fears of reproach, that 
I well knew some of my silly and light companions on 
the schoolgrounds might visit upon me after my bap- 
tism. Such influence was among the "powers of the 
world to come," most potent with me. The feeling also 
that stole over me at my father's family altar, when he 

29 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

would pray that at the last we all might be gathered 
home a family unbroken, with the dear ones gone before, 
was accentuated by its pathos, and many another re- 
minder of them. 

There was also another ministry that blessed our 
home, even before my birth. In its term of earth 
service it was but brief — a bare fortnight in duration; 
it was that of the one and only brother ever born into 
our home. Some would conclude that this life might 
as well never have lived at all. But not so ; that infant 
bore the name of Adoniram Judson, showing where the 
hearts of my parents were even in its prenatal days, and 
what lofty thoughts of consecration to the highest and 
most sacrificial of all earthly service. It betokened 
something great on the mind of my parents : they 
doubtless stood ready to devote that life to the highest 
service, had it been spared. This was the gestation 
period of the whole missionary portion of the American 
church of that time. Numberless children, in America 
and elsewhere, were named after the martyr soul of Ava 
and Aungbinleh. If, then, it pleased God to take some 
of these before the time of realized earthly hopes on the 
part of those who bore them, shall we say such hopes 
were vain? Far from it. I recall that as I stood be- 
side the open grave on the chill April day in 1868, when 
all that was mortal of my dear mother was about to be 
lowered into the grave, my eye caught sight of the little 
headstone with the initials "A. J." graven upon it near 
my mother's new-made grave. The reflection flashed 
upon me, that but for a mother capable of naming her 
firstborn after that talismanic name of Judson, I never 
had given my own life to the ministry of the eternal 
Word, a ministry which, moreover, thank God ! has indi- 
rectly, at least, run out through all that missionary earth 
that was upon my mother's heart, as well as graven 
upon the immortal breastplate of our great Melchizedek. 

The cloud which so lowered above my mother's head 
in the days of her bitterness was, after all. a "trailing 
cloud of glory" for her, as well as for others in her 
household. How true were the words of Dr. Edward 

30 



"TRAILING CLOUDS OF GLORY" 

Judson spoken not long before his departure : "Any suc- 
cess that has ever come to us is either because we have 
suffered or because others have suffered before us." 
Such is the law of divine sowing and reaping: "Except 
a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth 
alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit." 

Another poignant loss came to my parents, and to 
myself also, in my early childhood. That was through 
the removal, at five years of age, of our angel Florence, 
before referred to. She was, in a deep sense, a "recom- 
pence" for a time for the great bereavement suffered 
in the loss of my older sister. But, alas ! this joy also, 
if this life were all, was but fleeting. The summer she 
died was one of terrific heat, which so aggravated the 
disease with which my sister was seized, that, despite 
all the skill of doctors and nursing, she faded day by 
day. But, though all our hearts were bleeding, this lit- 
tle seraph was filled with visions of the land that to us 
was so "very far off," but near to her, and her song- 
ful lips, despite her pain, would keep singing, 

"There is a happy land, 
Far, far away, 
Where saints in glory stand, 
Bright, bright as day," 

a hymn she had learned in the Sunday school. 

Her expressions respecting "no fear of death," which 
she knew was near, were so radiant that the good physi- 
cian who bent over her to observe her symptoms, was 
obliged to turn away to hide his tears. So she also went 
away to be with the angels, and to lure her now trebly 
desolate brother "to brighter worlds and lead the way," 
and to emphasize yet further the appeal that, whatever 
in life was missed, the heavenly family reunion was not 
to be missed, and at any cost to pride or worldliness. 

The story of the fourth great sorrow that we as a 
family were called upon to bear has been hinted in few 
words in the former chapter. It was in the mysterious 
removal, almost without apparent disease, of our "little 
Lilian," the gift to us of our "Aunt Helena" on her 
death-bed. The gift was accompanied with the token of 
3 31 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

the precious ring associated with the missionary meeting 
referred to. The passing of this little darling, on whom 
my mother had begun to set her hopes of having at least 
one daughter for her cheer in later days, was like the 
last straw that crushes the camel's back, and we feared 
for my mother, always frail and weakly. But did her 
faith fail? Far from it. With each new trial, she 
seemed to gather fresh vision of the "land that is fairer 
than day." Her chastened, cast-down, but never for- 
saken spirit rose step by step above all these trials, till 
at length her own change came. She knew, and often 
said, as in the last covenant-meeting she attended in the 
old home church she recited: 'Tor we know that if 
our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we 
have a building of God, an house not made with hands, 
eternal in the heavens." For forty-eight years now, she 
has been among the glorified, and the faith of her one 
remaining son and one daughter (born to her some 
years after the loss of those referred to) remains all 
the stronger for the discipline of sorrow that was 
strangely, but in infallible wisdom, meted out to us. 

Whatever other purposes, therefore, in the divine 
economy, these so-called losses serve, to us, at least, to 
whom these precious gifts were "for a season lent," they 
were naught less than 

"Trailing clouds of glory, 

From God who is our home," 

with values in line with those of which Wordsworth 
sings. And they all certainly bore on the world-relations 
into which God was leading at least one of the two sur- 
vivors of my mother's apparently despoiled flock. 

But it would be a pity if I were to convey the impres- 
sion that, because of these afflictive events in our family, 
our home life, as a whole, was of the somber and melan- 
choly type; it was really quite the contrary. To begin 
with, my father was of a most genial and even humorous 
disposition. He himself, as my second mother of later 
years used to say, was "a rare home-maker." He and 
my own mother also were exceedingly hospitable folk, 

32 



"TRAILING CLOUDS OF GLORY" 

never happier than when on occasion they could have, 
for even weeks together, one of my widowed aunts, with 
her children, come and practically live with us, as they 
sometimes did for half the summer. Our comfortable 
and pretty new farmhouse, built after our heavier afflic- 
tions hereinbefore described, was often the scene of the 
most gleeful gatherings — say in the evening of a 
Thanksgiving or Christmas or New Year's Day — when 
great sleigh-load parties would come out from town to 
"Uncle Dan's and Aunt Harriet's" for a rare social 
time. 

Sometimes we would have the greater part of our 
genial English pastor's family all at once, including the 
shy little girlie that later became my dear wife. At 
other times the family of one of our loved uncles from 
Cherry Valley, with whomsoever they cared to bring 
along, would come up for a big chicken-pie or roast- 
turkey dinner, and then all sorts of fun were planned 
for the children in the evening; and then off home they 
went late at night, packed in deep straw, with hot brick 
or soapstone comforters in the long sleigh-box. In the 
summer-times, also, our well-shaded home grounds, with 
a sumptuous garden red with cherries, ripe strawberries 
and currants, made our home a tempting "wayside inn" 
for such visitors as might drop in on us any time un- 
announced. So we two or three children, my mother's 
faithful German protege, Kate, that was like a daugh- 
ter to her and a sister to myself, and sister Fannie, were 
often on the qui vive for new arrivals. On occasions 
our cousins brought from California, around via 
Panama, for schooling, would be our guests ; and then 
we would romance on the wonders of the land of ad- 
venture and of gold. Ah ! we were on the whole a jolly 
lot, we youngsters on that old farm, adjoining to which 
lived my Uncle Aaron and his large family, always 
ready to "lend a hand" in our farming jobs, or drop in 
of an evening to add to our cheer. 

The power of my mother's impress upon me, al- 
though always quietly expressed and reinforced by my 
father's vigorous concurrence, respecting the highest 

33 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

type of manhood for me, was most compelling. She 
entered the glory-land forty-eight years ago, just before 
my graduation from college, but the spell of her influ- 
ence has ever been upon me. Until this day, whenever 
I find myself in a critical situation or on an important 
platform, my sainted mother's image rises before me 
and often lifts me out of myself. 

Subsequent to my mother's decease, my father mar- 
ried again, a Mrs. Benton, the widowed daughter of 
Rev. James Veness, of Rockton, Illinois. She did her 
utmost to compensate for my mother's loss, was greatly 
helpful to my father in his latter days till his decease 
in 1892, and she did much to create a homelike atmos- 
phere, into which we children and the grandchildren 
were always cordially welcomed. Of this marriage a 
daughter was born. 

While speaking of these household bonds mingled 
with deep trials, I take special and thankful joy, shared 
by my wife, in referring to the great blessings in a com- 
pensating way which came to us in the gift and survival 
till this day of our own five dear children. The eldest, 
Rev. Henry S., is an honored, useful and beloved pastor 
in West Virginia ; his younger brother is a gifted young 
teacher of art, and the three daughters, including an 
adopted one, Ruth Janet, are of great comfort to us; 
while six grandchildren, besides one in heaven, deepen 
the joy in our family life. 



34 



IV 
AN ARGOSY FROM OVERSEA 

THERE came one day, almost unannounced, into 
our community life at Belvidere, an exodus from 
the Old World, an event which controllingly in- 
fluenced my whole subsequent life. This was the com- 
ing to the church of a new pastor, accompanied by his 
wife and family of ten children, the youngest of whom 
in after years I happily married. This pastor was no 
less a personage than Rev. Charles Hill Roe, of Bir- 
mingham, England. Born in Ireland of an English 
mother, the wife of a minister of the English Estab- 
lished Church, Rev. Peter Roe, young Roe had early, 
through touch with some Baptist evangelist, himself 
become a Baptist and soon after went to England. He 
entered Horton College (now Raw don, located near 
Leeds), and pursued a course of study in preparation 
for the ministry. At its complet ion he took away with 
his wife the elde iter of the president, 

iltiam Steadman, D.D pas- 

: in the north of England, at Mi in Tees- 

came for eight ye :itary of the 

Mission Society or evan- 

hout the 

converts 

:s, Roe formed a 

ingham, which in 

eight of eight hundred or 

more, ha of? also another 

church to >r itself. One of the 

outstanding event ate was the coming to 

Birmingham of ley, the foremost of 

American evangeli b a meeting held in Hene- 



-<I.<1 H.'til I.IIH »aJHAH3 







CHARGES hill roe, d.d. 



IV 
AN ARGOSY FROM OVERSEA 

THERE came one day, almost unannounced, into 
our community life at Belvidere, an exodus from 
the Old World, an event which controllingly in- 
fluenced my whole subsequent life. This was the com- 
ing to the church of a new pastor, accompanied by his 
wife and family of ten children, the youngest of whom 
in after years I happily married. This pastor was no 
less a personage than Rev. Charles Hill Roe, of Bir- 
mingham, England. Born in Ireland of an English 
mother, the wife of a minister of the English Estab- 
lished Church, Rev. Peter Roe, young Roe had early, 
through touch with some Baptist evangelist, himself 
become a Baptist and soon after went to England. He 
entered Horton College (now Raw don, located near 
Leeds), and pursued a course of study in preparation 
for the ministry. At its completion he took away with 
him as his wife the eldest daughter of the president, 
Rev. William Steadman, D.D. After an effective pas- 
torate in the north of England, at Middleton in Tees- 
dale, Roe became for eight years secretary of the 
Baptist Home Mission Society of Great Britain, evan- 
gelizing also with phenomenal power throughout the 
realm. At length, assembling one hundred new converts 
who had been won through his efforts, Roe formed a 
new church in Heneage Street, Birmingham, which in 
eight years grew to a membership of eight hundred or 
more, having within that time set off also another 
church to set up housekeeping for itself. One of the 
outstanding events of this pastorate was the coming to 
Birmingham of Charles G. Finney, the foremost of 
American evangelists. Through a meeting held in Hene- 

35 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

age Street about two hundred converts were added to 
Mr. Roe's church alone. 

Mr. Roe was deeply en rapport with free American 
ideals and institutions. Once arrived in the land, he 
was never heard lauding the Old World prodigies to 
the detriment of the New. He became from the start 
a loyal American, despite all crudities and imperfections. 
He also wished to plant his large, young family in a 
region of fairer possibilities; and in the light of his 
uncertain health, he hoped that labor in some simpler 
and more modest sphere would prolong his years of 
public service. But he came out scarcely knowing where 
he would alight. Arriving in New York, his case was 
taken up by Rev. Benjamin Hill, then secretary of the 
Baptist Home Mission Society, and by Rev. Daniel 
Sharp, a prominent Boston minister, and an English 
compatriot. By these men he was recommended to the 
church at Belvidere, at the time one of the three largest 
churches in the State of Illinois. 

This body was made up of accretions from wide 
districts of the older East. It was for long quite a 
colonizing center, a propagating-bed for numerous com- 
munities of similar sort still farther West. The church 
had had for its first pastor a man somewhat widely 
known ; namely, Rev. S. S. W r hitman, earlier a professor 
in Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, New 
York. Spontaneously there had gathered about him a 
community kindred to himself, in mind, taste and cul- 
tivation. 

Mr. Roe had known the fascinations of a popular 
pastorate in a metropolis, and he had been disillusioned. 
Twice after reaching Illinois he had been offered the 
pastorate of the flourishing First Baptist Church of 
Chicago, which he promptly declined. 

Belvidere, however, he found no sinecure. He was 
at once busy making acquaintances with the village and 
farmer folk, and ere long the whole countryside was in 
a state of revival. Often the banks of the Kishwaukee 
River were visited, to baptize large numbers of rejoic- 
ing converts. 

36 



AN ARGOSY FROM OVERSEA 

Many were the traditional tales passed around 
through the parish during the weeks in which the new 
parson's family were learning the ways of the new land ; 
for example, the attempt to boil the sweet corn until the 
cob had become soft, the making of pumpkin pies by 
cutting up the raw vegetable like apples and the insi- 
pidity of their taste when baked, the difficulty of getting 
the "beautiful white green basswood" to burn, etc. All 
this added piquancy to the arrival and gradual domicil- 
ing of the new family among us. 

The arrival of the family in our new community 
had rather a romantic interest. After landing in New 
York they came up the Hudson by steamer, then by 
rail to Buffalo, whence they took steamer again around 
the great lakes to Milwaukee and Waukegan. By pre- 
arrangement three of our farmer folk, including an 
uncle of mine, took a carriage and two large wagons 
and brought the family, bag and baggage, across the 
country, an event that was long remembered by all mem- 
bers of the party, as well as the church, with great in- 
terest. This was before railroads were built west of 
Chicago. 

As a preacher our English pastor was altogether 
unique. He had strong Celtic characteristics. It flashed 
in his humor, it flowed in his volubility through magnetic 
periods, it gushed in his gestures, it flowered into ele- 
gance in his figures. Nothing he ever did or said was 
tame or commonplace. There was an uncommon swing* 
about him. His presence, his bearing, his facial expres- 
sion, his wealth of vocabulary, were kingly. He was 
fully six feet two and a half inches in height, and very 
martial in bearing. The long and graceful stride with 
which he used to pass up the aisle and enter the pulpit 
made an impression which once to witness was never to 
forget. The children stood in awe of it, as if they had 
seen Moses climbing Horeb or Samuel advancing to 
pronounce judgment upon Saul, or, better yet, Jesus 
mounting Hermon to be transfigured — a thing no other 
could affect and of which he in his reverence was un- 
conscious. It seemed to prepare his auditory for a 

37 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

message from the skies. It turned that plain old meet- 
ing-house into the very mount of God. 

Like most British preachers, he was fond of Old Tes- 
tament texts and their rich Hebrew imagery: "Until 
Shiloh come, and to him shall the gathering of the peo- 
ples be." "Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone." 
Once when preaching on the New Testament text, "Cut 
it down, why cumbereth it the ground?" reaching a cer- 
tain climax of tender, yearning appeal, his great heart 
seemed to break; he could add not another word, but, 
throwing his tall form forward over the pulpit, he 
groaned pathetically aloud in a way that melted his en- 
tire audience. We almost feared the "golden bowl had 
broken," but in a moment he rallied and begged me, a 
visiting theological student, to dismiss the assembly with 
prayer. 

I have since heard many of the foremost preachers 
in England, including Spurgeon, Maclaren, Clifford, 
Jowett, Morgan, and the most eloquent in America dur- 
ing the last forty years, but for majesty of presence on 
the platform, for flowing and wonderful periods and ex- 
pressive gesture, with a commingling of majesty and 
tenderness of appeal, I have never seen this pastor of ours 
surpassed. His ministry was also a school in theology, in 
homiletics and pastoral tact in the management of human 
nature, which always so singularly kept his own church 
together. All this constituted a seminary of training, 
the equal of which I have yet to see. 

His public prayers were something indescribable. On 
Thanksgiving Day occasions, whoever preached the ser- 
mon, everybody wished that Roe particularly should 
voice the thanks and praise of the people. Congrega- 
tions would become breathless as he gathered up the 
affairs of the individual, the family, the nation and the 
world, or soliloquized face to face with the infinite 
Father. Often we would scarcely have been surprised 
if the roof above him had opened and shown us the 
chariot and horses of fire, so near was the upper world 
brought to our thought. At one time, when he was the 
guest of Dr. Henry G. Weston, in New York, the Madi- 

38 



AN ARGOSY FROM OVERSEA 

son Avenue pastor would get himself and guest invited out 
to some of his appreciative parishioners to breakfast, in 
order that Roe might be heard in prayer afterwards at 
the family altar. The like of it the ripest of them de- 
clared they had never before heard. 

It was in the midst of all this combination of ele- 
vating impressionalism that there came one day to our 
town a missionary home from Burma on furlough, and 
with him one of the dark-skinned native Karens, named 
Sahnay. The missionary was the Rev. J. S. Beecher, of 
Bassein, who had originally gone to Burma in company 
with Adoniram Judson, when he went out the last time, 
in 1846. Our youthful minds were of course awed by 
such visitors. In the Sunday school particularly, which 
the Karen Sahnay ventured to address — he from the 
land of idols and speaking to us in that strange language 
concerning our religious responsibilities in a land where 
the true God was known — we children were much awed. 
Mr. Beecher interpreted, and that was stranger still. 
After a short period it was announced in our community 
that this Mr. Beecher was to take back with him to 
Burma the brilliant and eldest daughter of our pastor, 
Miss Helen. The distance seemed to us so mysteriously 
afar — as far away as Mars ! How we wondered ! What 
questions we asked of our mothers ! Would she ever 
come back? What if she should die out there as had Mr. 
Beecher's other wife? And, besides, if some day a little, 
motherless child like the one Mr. Beecher had previously 
sent home to its grandmother in our town should come to 
Belvidere, who would care for that? Ah! but in that 
list of questions were wrapped up a thousand deep 
searchings of heart that have puzzled my mind, and 
multitudes more, until this day. 

The upshot of this was that, although child as I was 
and almost a generation removed from Helen Roe 
Beecher, the whole matter of missions to the heathen 
and their implications for the church of God began from 
those days to burn themselves into my whole being. 
The letters she used to send home and which came to 
my ears in the days when, as a schoolboy, I was much 

30 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

an inmate of the parsonage, impressed me with a higher 
type of courage than mine. Later, when a chum in col- 
lege of her brother, my interest became further aug- 
mented, and when my interest awoke in the youngest 
daughter of that same family, who eventually became 
my beloved, judicious and always helpful wife, I was 
bound to missionary relationships certain to be lifelong. 
In 1890 I found myself a guest on that same mission 
compound where the Beechers laid out their lives for 
the thousands of Christian Karens, since gathered into 
the churches of the Bassein district; and I thanked God 
for all that had brought me into relation to it, including 
that argosy from oversea, in 1851. 

As illustrative of "Father Roe's" influence over me, 
both direct and indirect, I relate the following. In the 
spring of 1858 our pastor invited to aid him in a special 
meeting a gifted young minister from Peoria, Illinois, 
the Rev. Henry G. Weston, afterwards for forty years 
president of Crozer Theological Seminary. During Mr. 
Weston's labors in Belvidere, I, a lad of eleven years, 
was converted. 

One evening I was one of a company of inquirers to 
go forward to the front seats for prayer. I was led to 
give some simple expression of my feelings and desires. 
Mr. Weston, who was sitting directly before me, felt 
impelled to kneel and pray particularly for me. He 
seemed to have a prophetic view of God's purpose for 
me, and, as I have long felt, ordained me on the spot. 
Doubtless this incident, which many in the church 
besides my parents heard with uncommon emotions, like- 
wise impressed Mr. Roe, and led him henceforth to 
watch for every sign of the unfolding of God's plans for 
me. 

One day also, when I was about fifteen years of age, 
I was on my way homeward from school through a grove 
of timber when suddenly I encountered Pastor Roe — 
"The Elder," as we called him — in hunting attire, out 
for rabbits. He was in a gray suit, with a tall white 
hat, stately, almost like the oaks among which he 
walked. He met me very genially, expressing interest 

40 










EDITH ROE MABIE 



> REALITY 

me with a higher 
iiri in col- 
li ler aug- 
ngest 
came 
was 



I 



rne, 
In the 

i special 
Illinois, 






I 

He 

ie for 

z on the spot. 

riany in the church 

i ith uncommon emotions, like- 

. and led him henceforth to 

unfolding of God's plans for 

a as about fifteen yea; 
v qrd from school thro 

v I encountered 
. led him — in huntii 
n a gray suit, with uite 

like the oaks an ich he 

very genially, expressing interest 

40 



rtlHAl/. HOH HTIQH 



AN ARGOSY FROM OVERSEA 

in my studies. All at once a rabbit sprang out of a 
thicket and dashed down the path ahead of us. The 
Elder's quick whistle brought the little "cottontail" to a 
standstill, and in an instant his sure aim — for he was a 
dead-shot — laid low the game. I ran and picked it up, 
and we trudged on apace. 

"By the way," said he, resuming the conversation, 
"it is time you began studying Greek in preparation for 
college." I replied that I had "little hope of ever going 
to college." "Oh, yes," said he, "you'll go. Your mother 
and I have talked about that. The next time you come 
down to the town, come around to the parsonage and 
I'll lend you a Greek grammar." He meant it, and 
there was nothing for me to do but go. Then he sent 
me over to the genial principal of the high school, Mr. 
Page, who afterwards encouraged my father not to let 
me settle down to too small undertakings, like "counting 
buttons or measuring tape in a dry-goods store" (to such 
a clerkship I was inclined), "but to look higher." So 
I was soon deep in the declension of Greek nouns and 
started on a line of preparatory study for college. 
About a year afterwards, wheat having brought "seventy 
cents a bushel," my father's condition of my making a 
beginning, I entered for a trial term in the old Uni- 
versity of Chicago, a term which extended itself, I 
scarcely know how, to five consecutive years. As the 
course proceeded, I found myself evangelizing on Sun- 
days, and often for days together, in a score of more of 
country churches in northern Illinois and southern Wis- 
consin. In such work my young but ardent efforts were 
surprisingly blessed. Most of it grew out of a pastor's 
skill in thrusting out a neophyte upon his own powers. 



41 



THE MINISTRY OF BOOKS 

ONCE in my early ministry I was deploring to my 
former pastor the fewness of my books. "Oh,'' 
he responded, "be sure to make the most of those 
you have, and you'll not lack for more." I little 
dreamed, at the time of my complaint, what potency 
even a half-dozen books, embraced in my father's old 
farmhouse collection, held for me. Among those books, 
I best recall my grandfather's old family Bible with the 
dramatic picture, occurring near its end, of some arch- 
angel committing Satan to the bottomless pit through 
the massive trap-door which was ready to close upon him. 
There was also a well-worn copy of Benedict's "His- 
tory of the Baptists," on which the simple story in the 
third chapter of Matthew shed a flood of light. There 
was also a two-volume edition of the "Life and Sermons 
of Andrew Fuller," much of which I read as I grew 
older — even the controversial portions affecting sover- 
eignty and free will ; and his debate with Priestley re- 
specting Socinianism and related errors. But among the 
strongest impressions Fuller ingrained into me were 
those which concerned the depth and reality of the grace 
of God, human responsibility, whatsoever were God's 
decrees, and the obligation to extend the missionary 
gospel to the ends of the earth. As he was the first 
secretary of the Baptist and oldest missionary society 
in Great Britain, and contemporary with Carey, John 
Foster, Robert Hall, William Knibb (of Jamaica), and 
among the rest William Steadman, the father of our 
English pastor's wife, he was one of my early religious 
heroes. Probably the fact that my father so sensed 
the significance of this man for theology and missions, 

42 



THE MINISTRY OF BOOKS 

my father also having been all his life a great reader 
of books and men, had much to do with my growing, 
though then very immature, mind. 

But there were five other books in our library, of 
great moment to me. These were Wayland's "Life of 
Judson," in two volumes ; the "Life of Ann H. Judson" ; 
the "Life of Sarah B. Judson," and a compilation by 
Prof. J. D. Knowles, of Newton Theological Institution, 
entitled "The Judson Offering." The latter book I read 
first. It had some oriental, attractive pictures, and 
of all pathetic books I ever knew that drew upon the 
sympathies, I think it was the most compelling. I not 
only read it, but I would at times go away into my 
chamber alone and read parts of it, crying as I read; 
and I wondered that I could not get some of my cousins 
who visited me betimes to read it also. Of course I did 
not dare tell them that I had often cried over parts 
of it as I read, probably the more because it abounded 
in tender references to family loves and bereavements, 
and was seasoned with choice little poems in memory of 
dead children early caught away, as had been my own 
brother and sisters. Probably few children, without 
early sorrows like mine, could have felt the book as I 
did, but it captured me. 

With this beginning I was prepared to go on and 
read the heavier biographies which otherwise would not 
have so appealed to me. These accounts, however, threw 
a mystic halo over the far-away lands of palms and 
pagodas in the tropics ; they warmed my sympathies for 
spots like Moulmein, old Ava and Amherst ; for the 
grave under the Hopia-tree, and the lone isle of St. 
Helena. And they drew out my mind toward other 
missionaries and their relicts, like the children of the 
Boardmans, the Vintons, the Haswells and the Corn- 
stocks, the daughter of whom, Miss Lucy, was a mem- 
ber of the church in Brookline which I later served, 
as were also a daughter of Dr. E. A. Stevens and a sis- 
ter of Mrs. Francis Mason. All this prepared me for 
the reading of other biographies of outstanding mission- 
aries of other lands and of any denomination. I be- 

43 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

came increasingly familiar with personalities like Kin- 
caid and Jewett, Duff and Livingstone and Paton, and 
other heroes like the Binghams and Coans of the 
Hawaiian and other islands of the Polynesian Archipel- 
ago. 

I admit that there was some romance in all this, 
but, even so, that simply means that the imagination be- 
came fired, that sentiment was awakened. What is life 
worth without imagination? A poet without sentiment? 
Wanting these, all life would wither at the root, and all 
power to inspire others would vanish at the birth. 
Reality is but the fruit of what is flower in romance. 
When missions are wanting in the imaginative — that is, 
the creative factor, on fire with God — they become noth- 
ing but a job or a tedious chore, like the work of a hod- 
carrier on a scaffolding. What God needs, and the 
world needs, is the artist that can first dream the build- 
ing, architecturally conceive it. To get scores of mere 
laborers to construct it, brick upon brick, is an easy 
matter. 

And so, long before I ever became a minister, even 
in my academic years, as a result of some romancing 
with missionary personalities, I became unconsciously 
prepared to participate in a missionary meeting, and at 
length to preach easily on missionary topics. On one 
occasion during my first pastorate, while on a visit to 
Chicago, I dropped in to the monthly missionary concert 
in the old University Place Church, of which Dr. Will- 
iam Hague was then pastor — the Hague of long identi- 
fication with the management of the Missionary Union 
in Boston, and a contemporary of Dr. Judson's. In 
some remarks offered I alluded to some efforts we were 
making in Rockford to deepen missionary interest, re- 
ferring in my words to a number of missionary charac- 
ters whose lives we had been considering. As I sat 
down, Dr. Hague, who probably then saw me for the 
first time, sprang to his feet, and exclaimed: "That 
young man will be sure to have a missionary church, 
for he already has the names of missionary apostles 
graven on his breastplate, as did the high priest of old, 

44 



THE MINISTRY OF BOOKS 

those of the tribes of Israel." His prophecy certainly 
was fulfilled, because every church I came to serve, 
early someway understood that if they became intoler- 
ant of considering missions, even to the heathen, I was 
likely to find elsewhere a people more congenial to my 
ideals. But they usually followed me cordially, if I 
used the least tact in the development of these matters. 

On one occasion I preached an annual missionary 
sermon while in Indianapolis, on the American Board's 
mission in the Hawaiian Islands, rather surprising my 
Baptist flock that I left the beaten path that morning. 
Following the sermon, a well-to-do member of my 
congregation astonished me by coming forward to re- 
mark: "Pastor, I have put several times more than my 
usual contribution into the basket this morning, because 
you took up another mission outside our own." The 
check was for five hundred dollars. Such checks would 
often come from our abler, brainy laymen, if their min- 
isters would oftener master the form and genius of 
some great mission of which their parishioners had not 
found time to read, or to digest — say a missionary 
biography, like that of Coan, Duff or Paton — and give 
it out molten, on hearts that otherwise would remain 
frigidly indifferent. This would bring impulse from a 
new quarter and in unexpected form. 

On my last trip across the Pacific, in May, 1914, I 
was asked, on the Sunday night after we left Honolulu, 
to give a resume of mission work in the Hawaiian Is- 
lands. A large company filled the saloon, more or less 
sympathetic; and some I supposed were quite apathetic. 
But I warmed to the subject with such data as I could 
command — I admit that I was a bit rusty on it ; however, 
when I had finished, a sort of uncouth, aged rustic of a 
man, that I suspected was ready to attack me for not 
criticizing rather than praising some of those "meddle- 
some missionaries," surprised me by arising and say- 
ing: 

"Well, friends, I have lived in the islands a good 
many years; I was getting rather tired of it; I thought 
perhaps California would suit me better, and so I bought 

45 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

a ticket and came aboard, but after what I've heard to- 
night about that paradise of a place, and all the good 
that's been done there, I'm going to take an early ship 
and go back ; I'm going back to die there !" 

Moral to young preachers: Before you attempt to 
preach a sermon on missions, know your field, but, in 
order to do this, you must read about it and read much 
and long. 



46 



Mb *» 

.^Si.' » £* ♦*:• ' ' - ' - 

i 




VI 
COLLEGE INSPIRATIONS 



I 



T would be difficult for an ambitious boy to be 
reared up to sixteen years of age, amid such sur- 
rounds, vironed me, and not have great stir- 
3 rings of heart for college education. Mv father had 
; since boyhood been a prodigious reader, one filled with 
8 miscellaneous information respecting men and affairs 
I T hen * h ? stirrin 8" events of his young manhood prior 
^ to the Civil War brought him into love with great 
journals like the New York Tribune, the tri-weekly 
edition of which he took for years after he came West 
g so that he kept abreast with leading public discussions 
a ol the time. I remember also with what zest one win- 
ter he read aloud at our fireside the "Travelogues" in 
g foreign parts of the celebrated Bayard Taylor, giving 
o his observations concerning the principal parts of Con- 
v nnental Jiurope, including experiences in Lapland, where 
h ~jer means of travel was b > drawn by rein- 

My mother also had been reared in a reading family. 
2>ne herself in her young womanhood taught in district 

K- lS f a " » * a * "f Ver friendlv t0 any contempt for 

took larmn , which, on oo pie used to 
arrect to berate. 

Most of I i 

re^ed as '°"s actually 

give a, wn so as to 

that I was con- 



VI 
COLLEGE INSPIRATIONS 

IT would be difficult for an ambitious boy to be 
reared up to sixteen years of age, amid such sur- 
roundings as environed me, and not have great stir- 
rings of heart for college education. My father had 
since boyhood been a prodigious reader, one filled with 
miscellaneous information respecting men and affairs. 

Then the stirring events of his young manhood prior 
to the Civil War brought him into love with great 
journals like the New York Tribune, the tri-weekly 
edition of which he took for years after he came West, 
so that he kept abreast with leading public discussions 
of the time. I remember also with what zest one win- 
ter he read aloud at our fireside the "Travelogues'' in 
foreign parts of the celebrated Bayard Taylor, giving 
his observations concerning the principal parts of Con- 
tinental Europe, including experiences in Lapland, where 
the only means of travel was by sledges drawn by rein- 
deer. 

My mother also had been reared in a reading family. 
She herself in her young womanhood taught in district 
schools, and was never friendly to any contempt for 
"book lamin'," which, on occasions, some people used to 
affect to berate. 

Most of the teachers in our country school were 
taken into our home to board ; and I was further stimu- 
lated by their long evening conversations with my 
parents respecting matters worth while. Withal, at later 
stages my father on two different occasions actually 
rented out his farm and moved into the town so as to 
give me better opportunities for schooling. 

It was during one of these periods that I was con- 
4 47 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

verted under the persuasive preaching of Dr. Weston. 
One day, soon after this, my revered pastor and Pres. 
J. C. Burroughs, of Chicago University, came to our 
house in a round of calls on families in which con- 
versions had occurred. I was greatly surprised by this 
manifestation of interest in me, a lad less than twelve 
years old. Dr. Burroughs, into whose mind I dare say 
the pastor, an active trustee of the new university, had 
whispered his hopes for me, boldly proposed that I keep 
the new university in mind, in my present high-school 
work. He expressed the hope that he would in time 
see me in Chicago. 

Four years afterwards, in the fall of 1863, I duly 
arrived. This was a momentous change for me — my 
first experience away from home — and it was only at the 
cost of great economies on the part of my parents. 
After paying my first term bill and purchasing a few 
books, I awoke to realize that if I was to continue in 
that school I must find some way of helping myself far 
beyond anything my father could afford to do for me. 
Accordingly, I went to President Burroughs, and ap- 
plied for any work he could provide for me about the 
college. He inquired whether I "really meant it" and 
whether I "would like to begin by helping him trans- 
plant some shade trees." I replied, "Certainly." That 
afternoon the president, gloved (as I was not), with 
tools in hand, proceeded with me to the job. 

Next I undertook some carpenter work. I became 
in turn janitor of certain churches, librarian of the col- 
lege, and bookseller, until at length I was invited here 
and there to preach, young as I was, much to the dis- 
tress of some of my not over-religious teachers, who had, 
of course, a proper zeal that I should not slight my 
studies. One of these, though mentally a genius, was 
aggressively jealous of my ever-deepening evangelical 
faith. The power of new associations over me likewise 
in this new atmosphere was marked. 

The sudden deaths of two of my fellow-students 
occurred. One of them had openly been a caviler at 
religion. The other was the handsome Harry Tucker, 

48 



COLLEGE INSPIRATIONS 



connected with one of the foremost families in Chicago, 
son of Col. Joseph Tucker, and grandson of Dr. Elisha 
Tucker. This young man, only a night or two before 
his death, came into my room and raised some earnest 
religious questions with me, and had, I hoped, got some 
help. A day or two afterwards, while toying with a 
loaded revolver in the room next to mine, he accidentally 
sent a fatal bullet through his own brain. All this 
served to deepen my sense of the need of early religion, 
and of the uncertainty of life. So I began to give time 
alone in my chamber to prayer for a deeper life. 

For quite awhile no answer came. At length one 
evening, in a student's room where a few only were 
gathered to pray for a revival in the college, there came 
a great change. The room was No. 19 in old Jones Hall 
— Rowley's — our Christian leader's room. President 
Burroughs surprised us by coming. Dr. William Ma- 
thews, of national renown in literary circles, was there, 
as yet far from being an evangelical, but under deep 
sorrow from the recent death of his wife, seeking com- 
fort. He came, as he told us, with "a prayer all writ- 
ten out in good rhetorical style" to offer. But when he 
tried to pray, it all went from him and he could simply 
cry the publican's prayer. Dr. Burroughs tried to pray, 
and broke down. Tutor G. Washington Thomas, brother 
of the late Jesse B. Thomas and one of the most bril- 
liant men on our Faculty, rose and began to speak of 
the denial of our Lord by Peter, and he, too, collapsed 
with emotion. One student who was there was con- 
verted on his feet while asking for prayers, and as 
for myself, in my utter prostration of helplessness, the 
risen Lord who met Paul on the Damascus road uncov- 
ered himself to me in a form of glory indescribable, a 
vision that became the constraining and outstanding 
memory of my early religious life. About this time 
a case of smallpox occurred in our dormitory, which 
temporarily broke up the college and sent us to our 
homes. It sent me, particularly, into a marked revival. 

On arrival in my home town I proceeded at once 
to the parsonage and gave to our Pastor Roe a pretty 

49 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

fervid account of my new Christian awakening. He 
took the deepest interest in my account, meanwhile 
writing down a list of names. Shortly he surprised 
me by saying: 

"The Lord has sent you home to stir us up here 
in the old church. For some time our young people's 
prayer-meeting has been discontinued for lack of a 
leader." Then, handing me the note-book, he remarked : 

"I have here a long list of names of young people 
of the town, mostly unconverted. Now take this list 
and see what you can do. Just go about and tell 
them what the Lord has done for your own soul." 

Such work was new to me, but I dared not flinch. 
The first young woman I visited, a special friend of 
mine, was converted that very day. She ran to a 
friend of hers, and that night she yielded her heart to 
Christ. Then the two went to others, and within a 
week a whole class of young women in the Sunday 
school were brought in in a way that stirred the entire 
church and some in the other churches. Before the 
summer had passed, nearly all of the two hundred or 
more of these young people on my list, many of them 
my former associates in the high school, had made 
public profession of their faith in Christ. 

Years afterwards I became pastor for a time of 
that old home church. One day I felt strangely moved 
to make a call on one of the old neighbors who lived 
on the road along which I used to ride on my way 
homeward from town, often pra)dng aloud as I passed 
them, for the various households supposed to be sleep- 
ing thus late at night. After expressing my deep 
concern for this neighbor's salvation, he astonished me 
by remarking: "I have never doubted your interest in 
my soul since I heard you years ago praying aloud for 
me and my family as you rode past my cornfield on 
your pony. I was husking corn behind the shocks in 
the moonlight. You, of course, did not know I was 
there. I am ready now to respond to your interest. 
Come into the house and meet my family, and we 
will talk it all over." The result was that he and his 

50 



COLLEGE INSPIRATIONS 



wife, his daughter and son-in-law all decided for Christ 
and united with the church. 

After the Belvidere revival I was led on occasions 
to spend a week-end with my college friends in some 
of their homes. On one occasion, however, the three 
days of absence were extended to three weeks. During 
this visit, in connection with the help of my chum and 
his youth-inspiring mother, Mrs. Savage, and backed 
up by the efforts of a sympathetic pastor, Rev. C. H. 
Remington, in Joliet, Illinois, nearly seventy people 
were converted and baptized into the church. 

At this time I had no definite purpose to become a 
minister, but I had come into contact with such soul- 
winners among laymen as Dwight L. Moody, B. F. 
Jacobs, Maj. D. W. Whittle, and a whole galaxy of 
men as earnest as I have ever known, at the Young 
Men's Christian Association headquarters in the city 
of Chicago, and with city mission work. 

My idea of Christian work for the love of it, apart 
from all professionalism — always the bane of the min- 
istry — seized strong hold upon me and holds me still. 
But those were uncommon student days. Recreations 
we had, but in some sane proportions. I myself was 
on the "first nine" of the baseball team, a first baseman 
and a crack batter, accustomed to make many a "home 
run" and none the less buoyant in it all that I had 
time also for the students' prayer-meeting. 

During the last two years of my college days the 
Civil War was on, and they were very stirring times. 
On the great, open plot of ground north of our build- 
ings, Camp Douglas was located. This became a 
great drill station for new recruits, as well as a place 
of rendezvous for troops coming from various parts 
of the Northwest and passing on to the front. It was 
in part a hospital for hundreds of sick Union soldiers. 
Many were the visits which we students were per- 
mitted to make to the bedsides of these sick and 
wounded men for religious conversation, affording a 
good drill in such exercise for those of us who even- 
tually found our way into the ministry. 

51 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Opposite our college grounds was the park in which 
Judge Stephen A. Douglas had his home under the 
great oaks. As the war went on, great mass-meetings 
were held under the trees to listen to the rousing war 
speeches in which orators like Gov. Dick Yates and 
General Oglesby, of Illinois; Gov. Oliver P. Morton, 
of Indiana, and many others, were adepts. It was in 
one of these meetings that I heard Thomas Buchanan 
Read recite his thrilling verses on "Sheridan's Ride." 
The city of Chicago was, moreover, the general center 
of all things martial during that exciting time. It was 
in the Sherman House that many of us for the first 
time after the fall of Vicksburg got a sight of its 
victor, General Grant, and had a chance to shake his 
hand. I still recall with what a twinge he involun- 
tarily twitched his arm as we grasped it, for, having 
shaken hands with so many thousands since the Vicks- 
burg triumph, the nerves of his arm were sore from 
the exercise. There we first saw Generals Sherman, 
Sheridan, "Fighting Joe" Hooker, Logan, and many 
another hero of the fray. These sights put nerve and 
spirit into even our student life and made us all more 
heroic for the battles of life. 

At length the day came when the war was over, 
and the nation was staggered to hear that Lincoln the 
Great had fallen from the assassin's bullet. The whole 
land was in its Gethsemane. Lincoln's body in its long 
last journey was brought to the "Prairie State" for 
burial, and, of course, it must rest for a little in 
Chicago, the city in which he had been nominated for 
the Presidency, and where many of his Western 
admirers and early associates had lived and wrought 
with him in ante-bellum days. What a morning was 
that when we saw stretched athwart the entrance to 
the old court-house, with which Lincoln was familiar, 
a large-lettered canvas with this moving sentiment: 
"Illinois clasps to her bosom her slain but glorified son." 

President Burroughs, always keen to seize upon 
anything that would raise the self-respect of his students 
and strengthen sentiment respecting the college, had 

52 



COLLEGE INSPIRATIONS 



obtained permission for our student body to march at 
the head of the mammoth procession that escorted the 
remains of the martyred President. This procession, 
starting from where the body had been received at 
the Michigan Central Railway Station on Twelfth 
Street, marched down to Lake Street and to the 
court-house on Washington Street, where all that was 
mortal of Lincoln was laid in state. What excited 
thousands joined in that cortege, our student body at 
the front, in the place of honor! Gen. Joe Hooker, 
hatless, rode on a grand, draped charger at the head 
of all the troops and societies that were marshaled that 
day to do honor to the great war President and eman- 
cipator of millions of slaves. I think about the most 
awe-filled moment in my life was when it came my 
turn to file through that old court-house corridor to 
look upon the dark, sunken and sorrow-worn features 
of the great Abraham Lincoln. 

Another moment of similar interest was at a later 
time, when six members from the Senior class of the 
university, of which I was a member, were summoned 
over to the lake front to lift from its earth entomb- 
ment the body of Stephen A. Douglas, that it might 
be deposited in the crypt under the new monument 
prepared for its final sepulchre. Then also a few of 
us were permitted to gaze on the features of Lincoln's 
protagonist. They were seen under glass as the lid 
over the face was removed, and seemed as distinct 
after six years of interment as if just laid there. The 
lines which Lincoln was wont so often to quote came 
to us: 

"Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud." 

It was the privilege of my father to hear in Free- 
port, Illinois, in 1856, the great and crucial debate so 
skillfully described by Winston Churchill in "The 
Crisis." In that debate Lincoln forced on Douglas 
the question, the answer to which, as Lincoln expected, 
lost him the election to the United States Senate. But, 

53 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

as Lincoln prophesied, the answer sent Douglas there 
"with a broken wing," an incident which resulted in 
placing Lincoln, rather than his rival, four years later, 
in the Presidency of the nation at the supreme crisis 
of its history. My privilege came later than my 
father's, but only to see both champions laid low in 
death, while what they in their several ways did for 
the advancement of the nation stands imperishable. 

Among the foremost factors in the way of educa- 
tional impress in my undergraduate days, both in 
college and seminary, was that received, from Dr. 
George W. Northrup. He was a man of uncommon 
philosophical acumen and spiritual insight, combined 
with a power of expression, both in the classroom and 
the pulpit, of titanic strength. On the whole, I rate 
him as the foremost of all the teachers I have ever 
had. While in college, he took me through Mark 
Hopkins' "Evidences of Christianity and Moral Science," 
and I had the full three years' course in the theological 
seminary under him. 

It was during this college period, also, that I began 
to come into touch with missionary people in a new 
way. Shall I ever forget the fervid eloquence with 
which the heroic Mrs. Justus H. Vinton, of Burma, 
on one occasion, together with her future son-in-law, 
Rev. R. M. Luther, addressed us, or the magnetic 
power with which, later, Rev. Edward Payson Scott, 
on his return from Assam, pictured to us a scene on 
the Mikir Hills, whither he had gone at great risk of 
life to tell the gospel story, accompanied only by his 
single native interpreter? The pith of the story was 
this: One of the wildest villages in the mountains, out 
of which streamed at his approach a company of war- 
like men lining up threateningly with spears in hand, 
was strangely cowed by the missionary's singing in 
Mikir an old gospel hymn: 

"Alas ! and did my Saviour bleed, 
And did my Sovereign die? 
iWould he devote that sacred head 
For such a worm as I ?" 
54 



COLLEGE INSPIRATIONS 



The missionary accompanied his song with a violin, 
which he sweetly played. It opened the way for 
negotiations and for gospel work, as probably nothing 
else could have done. 

When, as secretary of the Missionary Union, I 
found myself at Gauhati, Assam, twenty-four years 
afterwards, there came to me a Mikir Christian from 
that very district with a formal appeal for more 
missionary teachers like Scott, whom they still remem- 
bered, and the beginnings of whose work had never 
been followed up as it deserved. Since that time, 
however, a Miss Laura Amy, a member of my own 
church in Minneapolis, who later became Mrs. Carvell, 
went with her husband to those hills. There she laid 
down her life and awaits the resurrection. 

During this time a good deal of missionary interest 
was awakened among the students, and some became 
volunteers. We began to send to various missionaries 
for curios, and we had a cabinet made for their 
reception. Two of my fellow-students had been friends 
of John E. Clough in Burlington Institute, Iowa. As 
I heard through them of Clough's student days, his 
conversion and missionary call, my interest in him 
deepened. Besides, I had learned how my father's 
eldest brother in Iowa had been the first to win from 
the young surveyor student in Burlington his confi- 
dential confession that he would like to become a 
missionary. I began a correspondence with Mr. Clough. 
This correspondence ripened into a strong friendship 
which continued through the years until the missionary's 
death in Rochester in 1910. 

In 1871, on Dr. Clough's first furlough, he visited 
me in Rockford, where I had my first pastorate, and 
besought me to go back with him to India. Although 
I never saw my way to comply with the exact terms 
of his request, the deepened acquaintanceship served 
to bind my heart and sentiment more and more closely 
to the Telugu field, and also to all other fields occupied 
by the Missionary Society. 

55 



VII 
THE GRIP OF A GREAT CONVENTION 

IN 1867 there occurred, in the city of Chicago, a 
great convention. This was the series of Anniver- 
saries connected with our Northern Baptist mis- 
sionary societies. There have been, of course, many 
such notable meetings. But this was the first repre- 
sentative one, on such a scale, that I had ever attended. 
I, myself, was then a stripling of less than twenty, but 
its novelty to my young mind was not alone what made 
this convention great: it was great in itself. It fol- 
lowed close upon the events of the Civil War. "Recon- 
struction" was under discussion, and the whole Amer- 
ican mind was at full tension. The war itself had 
laid a great strain upon our foreign mission enter- 
prises, divided as they had become between North and 
South. The home mission problem, with several millions 
of freedmen thrown precipitately upon the Northern 
churches, was demanding large consideration. 

The invitation given by the Chicago churches was, 
like their own hospitable hearts, a "come one, come 
all," affair, with free entertainment thrown in. The 
Baptists of the city were fairly inundated with the 
rush of delegates. Six hundred and seventeen mem- 
bers and delegates of the Missionary Union alone, 
reported themselves. The First Baptist Church had 
just entered its new and elegant house of worship, one 
of the most up-to-date and commodious of modern 
buildings, in a first-class style of architectural con- 
struction; and there were many that desired to see it. 
This building, alas! was swept away by the great 
Chicago fire. 

The propaganda of the denomination, as such, in 

56 



THE GRIP OF A GREAT CONVENTION 

respect of unanimity on most subjects, especially theo- 
logical, was then probably without a fracture, as 
compared with the last twenty-five years. The attend- 
ance on the meetings was also very representative. The 
greatest American Baptist leaders I have known were 
there. Senator Ira Harris, of Albany, presided over 
the sessions of the Missionary Union, and the brilliant 
Hon. James M. Hoyt, of Cleveland, over those of the 
Home Mission Society. Presidents of our colleges and 
seminaries, like Martin B. Anderson, of Rochester; 
Dr. Geo. W. Eaton, of Hamilton ; Dr. Loomis, of 
Bucknell ; Pres. Henry G. Weston, of Crozer ; Pres. 
Daniel Read, of ShurtlefT, and Dr. J. C. Burroughs, of 
Chicago, all figured, and loomed large to our impres- 
sible minds. 

The cultured Augustus H. Strong, who soon after 
succeeded Dr. E. G. Robinson as president of Rochester 
Seminary, attracted large attention, as did also A. J. F. 
Behrends, of Cleveland, who was the favorite of many 
for the same position. 

Foremost in these notable meetings were the great 
secretaries of the time. The Nestor of them all was 
the prophet-like Jonah G. Warren, and the younger 
John N. Murdock, the new Home secretary of the 
Missionary Union. J. S. Backus, the polished E. E. L. 
Taylor, the young and fiery James B. Simmons, of the 
Home Mission Society, and Sec. Benjamin Griffith, of 
the Publication Society, directed the meetings of their 
respective Anniversaries. Dr. H. L. Morehouse, then 
a Michigan pastor, and who has since become for 
a generation, and still remains, a most commanding home 
mission secretary, was also present. 

Among the giants was Dr. Thomas Armitage, in 
some respects the most fiery Roman of them all, with 
his impassioned argumentation for a purer version of 
the divine Word, and who on a Sunday afternoon 
delivered a sermon, two hours in length, on "Verbal 
Inspiration, ,, as he saw it, which none who heard it 
can forget. Surely his trumpet gave a most certain 
sound, extreme as was his position. 

57 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Here are the names of some of the other worthies: 
Edward Bright, of the lusty Examiner; Heman Lincoln 
Wayland, later of National Baptist fame; Dr. Lemuel 
Moss, philosopher, editorial writer and educator; and 
Drs. Reuben Jeffrey, Thomas D. Anderson and Henry 
C. Fish, of Newark, who were all three impressive 
platform orators; Drs. Rollin H. Neale, William 
Hague and J. C. Stockbridge, long outstanding lights 
of Boston pulpits — were with us. It was at this 
Anniversary meeting, also, that I heard Bartholomew 
T. Welch, "the old man eloquent" from Albany, criti- 
cizing the attempts at revision of the Scriptures. 
Besides these there also appeared the veteran Jacob 
Knapp, continental evangelist in his time; Dr. Robert 
E. Pattison, educator and theologian; George B. Ide, 
of Springfield, Massachusetts ; Robert Turnbull, of 
Hartford; Daniel G. Corey, of Utica; Silas Tucker, the 
last of five gifted preachers in one family. That bril- 
liant trio of rising stars of the first magnitude, George 
C. Lorimer, P. S. Henson and Wayland Hoyt, fired 
our imaginations and ambitions. Then, too, appeared, 
for the first time on a national Baptist platform, the 
young, glossy-haired, black-eyed, confident George F. 
Pentecost. His dashing, irrepressible, glowing style at 
this meeting led shortly to his call to the pulpit of the 
then prominent Hanson Place Church of Brooklyn. 

That virile veteran of many a hard-fought battle 
over the rights of man, Websterian in presence and 
bearing, master of assemblies and of Calvinistic the- 
ology, the redoubtable Nathaniel Colver, was with us. 
It was he who, when the debate was on with Armitage, 
Wykoff and others, rose and said: "Brethren, they tell 
us that from this new version more light will break 
forth than from the old. But the light from the old 
is already so bright that it blinds my eyes." 

Although it was not a part of this meeting, it may 
be allowed here to say that, shortly before, the pre- 
eminent Richard Fuller, of Baltimore, had been brought 
on by Dr. Everts, in connection with the dedication 
exercises of his new church, to preach his matchless 

58 



THE GRIP OF A GREAT CONVENTION 

sermon on "The Cross." This sermon I heard, the 
iinest piece of pure, heart-melting, Christian pathos to 
which I ever listened. 

Great laymen also came to this feast of fat things. 
Among them were John D. Rockefeller, of Cleveland, 
just beginning to be denominationally known outside 
his own city; Gardner Colby, Samuel Crozer, George 
F. Davis, of Cincinnati, and Ebenezer Thresher, of 
Dayton; J. R. Osgood, he of Sunday-school fame and 
soul-winner of Indianapolis; James H. Duncan, G. W. 
Chipman, Miall Davis, always in evidence where there 
was any money to be raised for the kingdom, and a 
host of Western brethren, whom the time fails me to 
mention. There were indeed giants in those days 
among the Baptist fathers, and the giants thought it 
incumbent on them to be at such meetings, even though 
they had no set speech to make. In any case, these 
meetings went far to impress my young and ardent 
mind with the greatness of the interests under con- 
sideration, and the projectile power of great person- 
alities to enforce them. All this marked a new era in 
my life thoughts: it gave concreteness to movements in 
the earth which previously were abstract and far away. 

Perhaps the most impressive hour, to me at least, 
in the course of the Anniversaries, was when some 
of the returned missionaries, like Eugenio Kincaid, of 
Burma, or F. A. Douglass, of Teluguland, told of the 
inspirations on their fields, or when such new appointees 
as Josiah R. Goddard, A. V. Timpany, E. W. Clark 
and William Lisle, with their wives, and Miss Rosa 
Adams, a brilliant light of Indianapolis, stood before 
us for farewell words, with their all on the foreign 
mission altar. The heathen world was brought near: 
it came within my own touch, a touch which has become 
closer and closer as the years since have passed, and I 
have been privileged, on three different world tours, to 
mingle with them in missionary bungalows, ' schools, 
chapels, hospitals and in camps on jungle tours, for 
days, and even weeks, together. 

How we boys who attended those Anniversaries dis- 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

cussed them and the men who eloquently figured in 
them, after the meetings were over. There was aroused 
in us unusual public spirit. From those college days, 
we became attached to our national, international, 
denominational and Christian movements. We there- 
after raised money among ourselves betimes, to send 
a student delegate to the Anniversaries, and at length, 
when some of us became pastors, we began to plan to 
take our little place among those who, on principle, 
attended the Anniversaries. 

Nor was even that the end. When, in the course 
of our pastorates, plans were announced for world or 
ecumenical conferences, whether held abroad or in our 
own country, we felt called upon to attend. As John 
Wesley said of it: "The world" was becoming "our 
parish." 

To that great Chicago convention, therefore, together 
with the environment in which it assembled, the writer 
feels he owes much, as a foremost inspirational agency 
in his life. What organization there was, came of life, 
rather than life expected from organization. 

If one asks why our foremost men, whether minis- 
ters or laymen, rallied in such numbers and representa- 
tive strength, as they did in that early meeting, I reply 
that it was because the nascent missionary movement, 
which began with the coming of Judson to our ranks, 
was in itself so morally great, and so manifestly at the 
basis of our corporate life. The root dynamic in it all 
was the new and high denominational consciousness 
thus engendered, one that lifted it clear away from any 
thought of essaying to be like some other ecclesiastical 
body, or in competition with it. The sense of a first- 
hand commission from the great Head of the church, 
to be ourselves, by His Spirit, and in His name, was 
what animated all. This consciousness was vastly more 
than narrowly denominational, partisan, or even national. 
It was Christly, ecumenical, cosmopolitan, eternal — this 
bold dynamic, so illustrated in Carey, Judson, Board- 
man, Vinton, Nathan Brown, Carpenter, Jewett, Ash- 
more, and others, "of whom the world was not worthy." 

60 



THE GRIP OF A GREAT CONVENTION 

This most humanly unselfish movement embraced in 
it the great sacrificial and spiritual paradoxes of the 
Christian faith: it all seemed squarely in the teeth of 
naturalism or self-interest. Hence the sermons preached 
in such a time, and earlier, whether Carey's "Inquiry" 
at Leicester, Wayland's immortal production on "The 
Moral Dignity of the Missionary Enterprise," Andrew 
Fuller's "The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation," or 
others by masters like Dr. Joseph Angus, of London, 
and Baron Stow, of Boston, were so transcendently great 
and timeless. It was an event of a lifetime to have 
heard one of these, or kindred discourses, amid the 
environments of the occasion. Our people knew, and 
sensed the fact, that what denominational life we had, 
had come to us from second, rather than first, inten- 
tion ; in short, that the Kingdom, like Christ's under- 
standing of it, was immeasurably greater than the 
denomination, greater than all the denominations. It 
was a line of consideration like this that first brought, 
and then long held, us Baptists so strongly together in 
fellowship and doctrine. It was this that accounted 
for those great love-feasts of the fathers. These 
fathers were not mere "sectaries," as are those who 
conceive of missions as coterminous with some partisan 
issue, or marked by some divisional line, within or 
without the denomination. All depends on where the 
accent lies. 



SI 



IN THE PASTORATE 



63 



VIII 
MY NOVITIATE 

AFTER the decided religious crisis through which 
I passed during my first term in college, and 
through contact with pronounced religious work- 
ers like D. L. Moody, B. F. Jacobs, Major Whittle 
and others, I began to apply myself actively to the 
winning of souls ; and as I did so I began to feel my 
heart warming more and more to such work. I was 
in love with such efforts, for God seemed to bless 
them in a marked way. There is no form of incite- 
ment like the sense of divine blessing, and through it 
my call to the ministry came. So, also, I began to 
preach a little, being pressed into it. Often, to my 
surprise, churches around the country, needing supplies, 
began to seek my services. I doubt not that the 
president of the college, who was often applied to, 
called the attention of such churches to my availability, 
and I was too good-natured not to respond. Besides, I 
was sorely in need of the financial help this afforded 
to meet my term bills. These opportunities more and 
more increased, and it became increasingly evident that 
the churches, at least, felt called to hear me. 

But what was to me more impressive was that 
conversions were frequent, if not under my very simple 
but earnest sermonettes, then from the conversations 
into which I easily fell wherever I went. The truth 
was I had so many real experiences of the Lord's 
grace in my heart, that it seemed second nature to 
converse on these things. 

The result of this was, that by the time I was 
through college, I was several times aooroached with 
a view to taking the pastorate of a church. For a time 

65 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

I resisted, for I had not yet taken a theological course. 
All my wisest teachers were averse to this. Dr. George 
W. Northrup, who had been my valued instructor in 
certain studies, as Metaphysics, Logic, Moral Science 
and Evidences of Christianity, during my latter period 
in college, was particularly distressed at the thought 
of it. He had come to Chicago to open the new 
seminary, and, few as the students were, it troubled 
him sorely that, after only one year in the seminary, I 
married, and accepted a call to the State Street Church, 
Rockford, Illinois. However, when later I was ordained, 
he was gracious enough to come out and preach the 
sermon, and see me launched on the uncertain venture. 
I myself was strong in the conviction that the call was 
from the Lord, and I accepted it hoping the time would 
come later, as it did, when I could return to the 
seminary developed to a more efficient stage of work, 
and so I should get more out of it than if I had pre- 
viously gone on with further theological studies. 

The church to which I was called was but a few 
miles from my early home. Some of its members were 
my family relatives. One of my father's older brothers 
was a highly honored deacon, and proved a most help- 
ful adviser and friend. Another prominent member, 
Mr. S. P. Crawford, had given me the benefit o* his 
scholarship privilege while in college. He also heartily 
stood by me ; and there were many others who, doubt- 
less on account of my very youth, did their utmost to 
uphold with sympathy and prayer a young neophyte. 
There were, when I went there, some differences and 
asperities between some of the members of the church. 
But these shortly cleared away; and it was not long 
until a gracious revival of undoubted genuineness came 
on. A brother-in-law of mine, the Rev. Charles T. 
Roe, since deceased and much lamented, was of very 
great help to me as the meetings proceeded. Indeed, 
but for his maturer experience, uncommon preaching 
powers and practical counsel in administration, I do 
not know how I could have got on at all at this time. 
He was truly to me an elder brother. 



MY NOVITIATE 



The meetings took on marked power. There 
occurred conversions of well-known people in the com- 
munity, hitherto unthought of as likely to become 
Christians. One a former major in the army; one 
the principal of a small business college and an avowed 
atheist ; one a foremost and very public-spirited business 
man; numerous farmer people in adjacent communi- 
ties. One promising young bank clerk, just my own 
age,* became our Sunday-school superintendent and a 
great yokefellow in Christian service. Ere the special 
meetings were over, I had baptized about seventy con- 
verts into the membership of the church. So tense 
were the labors of Mr. Roe, that he brought on a 
serious breakdown of nerves. However, the start given 
me on the new field was full of encouragement, and I 
moved on with signs of unbroken prosperity in the 
church for a period of four years. 

The revival I have been describing also took con- 
siderable effect upon the Young Women's Seminary 
of Rockford. This excellent school was under the 
fostering care of the Congregational churches of that 
region. The principal was Miss Anna P. Sill, an early 
pupil of the celebrated Mary Lyon, of Mt. Holyoke 
Seminary, in Massachusetts, and a woman of kindred 
spirit. She was liighly evangelical, and deeply devoted 
to missions. She was always deeply solicitous, also, 
for the spiritual welfare of her students, so that when 
our meetings developed such quiet but deep power, she 
was herself forward to come to our meetings, and 
bring companies of young women of serious mind 
with her. A number of these were converted. This 
sympathetic relation between our church and the semi- 
nary was very congenial to me, as being in some sense 
a continuation of earlier relation to the student mind, 
which marked my connection with my own college. 

One of the movements in this stage of service was 
of such a nature as lent courage to me in all the 
subsequent years. I found soon after I came to the pas- 



Mr. L. A. Trowbridge, now of Evanston, Illinois. 
67 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

torate that, as the result of the recent building of a pretty- 
costly brick edifice, a debt of about fourteen thousand 
dollars yet remained to be paid, after all the heavy 
strain to which the congregation had previously been 
subjected. The annual interest on that indebtedness 
amounted to about as much per year as the parish 
contributed to the pastor's support. We all deeply felt 
the depression. To me the discovery that the amount 
of indebtedness was about four times that I had been 
led to suppose, was crushing. I at length set to work 
in a quiet way personally, to find the money needed 
to cancel the big obligation. 

A few miles eastward of the town was a community 
of farmers, particularly well-to-do ; many of them had 
for years known my father and my good uncle and 
deacon. One was a well-to-do brickmaker who was 
especially proud that his bricks had gone into so fine 
a building as our church. His son was the first candi- 
date I ever baptized. But these people were generally 
non-church-goers. They, however, were known as 
money-saving "ten per-centers." I resolved to solicit 
them for help on our debt. Suffice it to say that my 
first day's work among these rustic but large-hearted 
people Drought me several hundred dollars to the good. 
Probably most of them gave because they knew I was 
a farmer's son, brought up to all kinds of work like 
theirs, and could easily put myself on their level and 
sense the difficulty with which their money was acquired. 
One thing, however, haunted me after I had got their sub- 
scriptions ; namely, that these people would think my 
interest was measured by the amount of money secured. 
I was resolved to disappoint that prejudice. So, not long 
after, when I had explained my purpose to my church 
advisers, I began a systematic visitation of that town- 
ship of Guilford. First of all, I invited every family 
in the district to come to their own district schoolhouse 
where I preached nightly, for there were but two or 
three families within an area of six square miles, and 
yet near to town, that had any habit of going to 
religious meetings. There were young people that 

68 



MY NOVITIATE 



had grown to manhood, sons of previous church-mem- 
bers, who had never, on their own acknowledgment, 
been inside a church building in that town of Rock- 
ford, although they lived within sound of the church 
bells, until I got hold of them. 

I began my canvass by announcing a series of 
nightly preaching services in their schoolhouse. Then 
I went about on foot through the snow and slush of 
that February and March, day after day, in a visitation 
of every home in the township, whether of any or no 
religion. Many, of course, were surprised to see me, 
for they were wont to think of us "town folk" as 
"stuck up" and indisposed to mix with "country people." 
I soon convinced them that I was not of that order. 
On occasions, I may say generally, I would pray in 
each home as I visited it, and wherever I was over- 
taken for the night, there, if invited, I would stay; 
and I took my meals with "the hands," or help, wherever 
asked. The truth is, I "boarded round," after the 
manner of the country schoolteachers I had known, and 
I thrived on it. 

On occasions, while talking with the farmer's wife 
in the kitchen about her work, and drawing her out 
respecting the old times down East, where her father's 
family had church-going habits, I would take a hand 
at the churning; and in the evening I would help the 
head of the house by doing a turn at milking the 
cows, in all kinds of which work I served a long 
apprenticeship on the old farm. I could tell many a 
tale of the lug I made to get the secret out of these 
people, as to how they had been influenced to give up 
all thought of family religion. I was, on one very 
snowy day when we were all shut in, feeling my way 
cautiously with one of the strongest of these characters, 
a man of considerable means, but a victim of intem- 
perate habits. He had a boundless heart. I finally got 
to a point where I asked him if a man with his deep 
nature had really never found himself, in time of 
accident or sorrow, in close relations with Him we call 
God. All at once he burst into a torrent of emotional 

69 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

expression, and rushing into the adjacent parlor, a 
well- furnished room, he tore down from its hanging- 
place on the wall a photograph of the only male child 
ever born to him, and exclaimed in a furious burst 
like a wail — part anger, part sorrow: "There, look at 
that! I once had a son; he was the joy of my heart, 
and the one hope of my old age. But he sickened and 
died. How could a good God take him?" In a moment 
his wife came into the room, wiping her eyes, and 
joined in the lament. There was then nothing to do 
but to kneel and pray. As I did, I tried to persuade 
this strong man also to pray. 

My pleadings were unavailing; but I rejoice to say, 
after I had removed from that pastorate, it was told 
me that when this old man lay dying he called out for 
some one to be sent for, to come and pray with him. 
He said, "Send for Mabie." I was then a thousand 
miles away, but I dare to hope, at least, that in his 
extremity, with no human minister near to help, he 
may have turned, even at that last moment, to Him 
who hears even the need of the most despairing. It is 
a comfort, at least, to know that I had been permitted 
to lead this man as near to the wicket gate as he 
would permit, years before. On the night of my 
leave-taking from that church, the parish was getting 
together a little testimonial of appreciation of my 
services. This old man sent his wife and daughter 
with a ten-dollar bill, saying: 

"Tell that young preacher to get himself a new pair 
of boots, to make good the waste of shoe leather he 
suffered wading around after us worthless old sinners 
here in Guilford." 

Ah! but I never considered any such pains taken 
for the lost, as in any sense a "waste." God be praised 
for such privileges thrown in my way! 

Suffice to say, I was rewarded for the three weeks 
of labor in that difficult district, by being permitted to 
baptize thirteen happy converts from the neighborhood 
into my church, and, among others, several characters 
of marked individuality and strength. 

70 



MY NOVITIATE 



Through these deep revivals, the parish gathered 
such courage and tone that I came to feel I must make 
a finish of the debt for which I had earlier sought 
subscriptions. But how to proceed, gave me much 
anxiety. The most well-to-do member of the parish 
had for some time been saying he would contribute 
"the last thousand dollars" needed, when the church 
was ready to pay the balance. But my people, I felt, 
had been under too heavy pressure from repeated 
giving, to be expected to contribute in large sums. So 
I finally hit upon a plan: first, myself to make a gener- 
ous subscription, then to approach my young people 
and new converts, and not ask those of larger means 
to subscribe until I should have gotten assurances of 
over half the amount needed, in many small contri- 
butions. So I began figuring. I made up a list of 
people and estimates of amounts they would probably 
consent to assume, provided we could wipe out the 
entire deficit. I saw that, in order not to produce a 
scare, I must pledge each of these donors to secrecy, 
until I should give the word. I began with those who 
could give five dollars, then those who could give ten, 
twenty-five, fifty, and one hundred dollars each, and 
so on. I found twenty-seven persons who pledged one 
hundred dollars each. 

By the time I had secured pledges of about eight 
thousand dollars, it leaked out that the sanguine young 
pastor was engaged in a very still, but important, hunt 
of some kind. Then my parishioner — he of the last 
thousand-dollar pledge — came to me, and insisted I 
should tell him what I was about. I simply told him 
I was raising the debt on the church. He answered: 

"You can't possibly do it." 

I replied: "I can; I already have over half the 
amount promised, and you might as well get ready to 
pay in your conditional pledge." 

I showed him my list of contributors ; I showed him 
what an evidence it afforded of the unanimity of the 
church since the revival; how impolitic it would be now 
to discourage these new givers in moderate sums, and 

71 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

produced my estimates of what the abler givers were 
probably able to do, and what they must now do, or 
run the risk of greatly dispiriting the entire church. 
The brother from that moment co-operated nobly, and 
although there were some lapses in pledges, as there 
always are in such cases honestly enough given, the 
debt was provided for, and finally paid off to the joy 
of everybody. 

It was during this pastorate, also, that I was so 
favored as to have a visit, continued for about a fort- 
night, from the Telugu missionary, John E. Clough, 
referred to in other chapters. He visited with me about 
the parish. One day Dr. Clough was one of a dinner 
party that was given to several of us out at the big 
farm of the evangelist Elder Knapp, in the new house 
just completed in his old age for his sons, an occasion 
which we all greatly enjoyed. We had roast pig — the 
traditional farm delicacy of those days — for dinner, 
and the old veteran Knapp and the young apostle to 
the heathen of India, between them, regaled us with 
incidents which had occurred in the respective forms 
of their life-work. This visit of Clough greatly in- 
creased the sympathy of my leading parishioners with 
my efforts to render the church more missionary, and 
brought me more fully into identification with the 
whole missionary movement of the time. 

After four years of these interesting experiences, 
there came one day from Oak Park a proposal that 
greatly surprised me. It was nothing less than that 
I should come to the place and have an interview with 
respect to the starting of a Baptist church in the place. 
A few heroic souls assured me of a comfortable sup- 
port. I could preach to them on Sundays, and have 
much of my time free to go into Chicago daily, as 
most of them did to business, and so complete my 
theological course, which had been for a time remitted. 
It didn't take me long to discover in this the fine hand 
of my former teacher, Dr. Northrup, the Goodspeeds, 
Dr. D. B. Cheney, and other friends of the new and 
now thriving seminary. Two-thirds of the members of 

72 



MY NOVITIATE 



this Oak Park band had been previously members of 
the great Second Church, Chicago, which I had known 
so well in my college days, a church that developed 
wonderfully under E. J. Goodspeed, and one in which 
that great, motherly soul, Aunt Lizzie Aiken, since her 
nursing-work in wartimes, had on occasions mothered 
fellows like Charlie Henderson, N. E. Wood, E. O. 
Taylor, E. P. Savage, L. T. Bush, Joe P. Phillips, J. T. 
Sunderland, John Gordon and myself. Several heroic 
Second Church fellows, lately married, and ready to 
establish new homes in the suburbs, led by Mr. C. J. 
Andrews, were ready to subscribe, clerks as they were, 
one hundred dollars and more each, towards the support 
of the new Oak Park interest. Three or four others, 
like Deacons Frank T. June, J. W. Middleton, Brother 
Whipple and a Brother Cook, were ready to do much 
more, and even to look forward to buying a lot and 
building a house of worship. There were only fifteen 
persons ready to enroll their names to support the 
new interest, but they were a Gideon's band. The 
whole matter was so surprising to me, and so fitted 
into my earlier hopes of completing my theological 
studies, that, even though it was heart-wrenching to 
leave the many dear friends in Rockford, a third of 
the church by this time being composed of converts I 
had baptized, I concluded to accept the offer. The 
following September found me settled in the new 
conditions. So, gayly, with my lunch-basket in hand, 
again like a schoolboy I made my daily pilgrimage, to 
and from the former site of our Chicago Seminary 
on Rhodes Avenue, back of the old university grounds, 
attending lectures with a zest I had never felt before 
in any classwork. Drs. Northrup, Arnold, Pattison, 
Mitchell, General Morgan, and others, were the teachers 
who wrought upon me. 

An event connected with that pastorate of out- 
standing interest was the conversion of one of the 
foremost personages of our town. This was Capt. Ira 
H. Owen, a retired navigator of the great lakes, who 
was living a semi-retired life in Oak Park. From the 

73 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

commencement of my ministry, he, with his Christian 
wife, began to attend our services. It was not long 
until he felt moved to take an open and whole-hearted 
stand for Christ, and was baptized into membership 
with the church. From that hour, he began to assume 
one-third of all the expenses of the parish, of whatever 
kind. He stood by us in the purchase of an eligible 
lot for a new church, and then led the way for the 
building of a snug little parsonage for the minister's 
family. The church was from the start a growing 
interest, and soon after my time there, erected a fine 
edifice. This church has been served since I left it 
by so well-known and competent men as Alexander 
Blackburn, Frank H. Rowley, J. W. Conley, Theodore 
Soares and D. T. Denman. I suppose to-day the 
church membership exceeds five hundred. I shall never 
cease to be deeply grateful for the whole-hearted and 
generous way in which that handful of devoted brethren 
in 1874-75 drew me to them, and led me into ways of 
which neither they nor I at the time had much fore- 
cast. When I came to respond, after graduation from 
the seminary, to a call which reached me from Brook- 
line, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1875, much as they 
loved me, they laid not a straw of hindrance in the 
way of my going to a yet larger service. 

Thus ended my two brief pastorates which I have 
called my ministerial novitiate. 



IX 
INTRODUCTION TO NEW ENGLAND 

AT the time of my graduation from the Theological 
Seminary in 1875, about the last thought that 
ever entered my mind was of going "down East" 
to assume a pastorate. I was emphatically a Western 
man, born there, in deep sympathy with its habits of 
mind, its characteristic enterprises and all else that 
belonged to it. There were at the time friends in one 
or two churches in Chicago, that, in case I would be 
persuaded to leave Oak Park, were ready to confer 
with me about serving a church in the city. Indeed, 
the very morning that the significant letter came from 
the East, inviting me on, I was on the point of com- 
mitting myself. The mysterious stopping of my watch, 
meantime, threw me out of connection with a train I 
had planned to take, and, going back to my home 
rather than waiting at the station for a later train, 
there came into my hands a letter from Deacon George 
Brooks, of Brookline, Massachusetts, which checked 
the whole matter for some reflection, counsel and 
prayer. The result was that I went to Boston for the 
purpose of testing the import of the communication I 
had received. 

On my way Eastward, I went via Philadelphia. I 
called on the friend of my child-conversion, President 
Weston, at Chester. He was one who I believed would 
give me disinterested counsel, and one who knew both 
East and West, as but few men in the East, of his 
position and prominence, did. Wise man that he was, 
he did not try to influence me in the least, though he 
was emphatic in his commendation of the Brookline 
Church, and trusted God would make plain my path. 

75 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

(Only once had I seen Dr. Weston since my conversion 
in boyhood, and he retained no memory whatever of 
the incident of his praying me into the ministry, on the 
night I came forward for prayer, as I thought he would 
have.) By this time, as the result of much contact with 
young student life, he had become accustomed to many 
disappointments respecting what is called "youthful 
promise," and he was pretty chary of any sanguine 
expressions. 

However, as the years passed thereafter, we had 
many blessed meetings together; he was my wise 
counselor during all the eighteen years of my mission- 
ary secretaryship ; on occasions, at much personal incon- 
venience, he served on programs of mission conferences 
I held, and he was often my household guest, and was 
a true father in Israel to my entire family. 

On my way to Boston, I also called on Dr. Bright, 
of the Examiner in New York, who received me with 
surprising warmth, and who also upheld my hands in 
public service ever afterwards. 

Arrived in Brookline, I became the guest of Deacon 
and Mrs. Brooks for a fortnight or more, while being 
introduced on all sides as the guest of the church. Of 
course I was not at all sure that the church would 
desire me. I was certainly a very different type of 
man from the veteran Dr. William Lamson, the former 
highly revered and conservative pastor, then retired 
and living in Salem. He had served them for seven- 
teen years or more, but they avowed themselves ready 
for aggressive work, and at the end of my visit they 
gave me a hearty call, only one vote being in the nega- 
tive, which, one good deacon said, made it "really 
unanimous." I then returned West for my family, and 
came again to be met by a deputation at the train, 
which conveyed us to our new home, which the church 
had, with amazing generosity, completely furnished for 
our convenience. There was even a cooked turkey 
dinner on the table, and a competent maid in the 
kitchen to do our bidding. Was that ever outdone in 
the treatment of a young pastor from the rustic West? 

76 



INTRODUCTION TO NEW ENGLAND 

On the Monday evening after my first arrival, I 
was taken by my Brookline host to the Baptist Social 
Union in old Tremont Temple, introduced to Pres. 
Benj. F. Cole, and even called on after the repast for 
a short speech. What strong laymen were there: 
Gardner Colby, J. Warren Merrill, J. M. S. Williams 
(the founder of the Union), Chester W. Kingsley, 
Henry A. Pevear, Deacon Hezekiah Chase, Deacon 
George Dexter, several from the Brookline Church, 
including Deacon Austin W. Benton and Lincoln Chase. 
John Carr, Deacon W. A. Bowdlear and Samuel Davis, 
of Dudley Street, also were among those who welcomed 
me. 

The first sight of the Baptist ministers' meeting was 
most impressive. What a personnel these leaders con- 
stituted ! President Hovey and Prof. Heman Lincoln, 
Prof. O. S. Stearns, Sees. Jonah G. Warren, J. N. 
Murdock and George W. Gardner, A. J. Gordon, Way- 
land Hoyt, the ardent and whole-souled Robert G. 
Seymour, D. W. Faunce, William Hague, Rollin H. 
Neale, Henry M. King, Franklin Johnson, and the 
winsome Charles L. Spaulding (the three latter, thank 
God, still with us)*; W. N. Clarke and the veteran 
William Howe, who lived to pass the hundredth-year 
milestone of his life. To call such a roll makes one 
almost homesick for heaven. Most of these are here 
no more. But a prospect of fellowship with such men 
was most alluring. 

Some of these ministerial fellowships resulted in 
intimacies in a ministerial club where we had discus- 
sions of all sorts and kinds, respecting men, books and 
affairs. Then for a time a few of us — Gordon, Lorimer, 
Henry A. Cooke (of the Bethel), W. W. Everts and 
I — would, on Saturday afternoons, take "to horse." 
We would meet in Brookline ; there I would join them 
and we would take long horseback rides out through 
those stately avenues that adorn the region of the 
Newtons, Jamaica Plain and the one and only Brook- 
line. None would ever have suspected that there were 

* Dr. Johnson has since left us. 

77 



FROM ROMANCE TO REA LITY 

such funds of humor locked up in Gordon, as he 
would bubble with on those Saturday afternoons. But 
the ozone we would take in was so invigorating. As 
horseman I rode a big sorrel animal, the property of 
my friend Lincoln Chase. To horsemanship I had been 
bred as a schoolboy in the West. The saddle I used 
was a fine military one, originally the property of my 
father-in-law during his brief experience as chaplain 
in the Civil War. It was once captured at Harper's 
Ferry, and then turned back again to its owner. 

Among my older parishioners was one very inter- 
esting and venerable character — Deacon Thomas Griggs. 
He had been converted under the preaching of "Father 
Grafton," of Newton, of whose original characteristics 
he loved to speak. He, with one of his brothers (or 
cousins), and Deacons Elijah and Timothy Corey, 
well-to-do farmers of Brookline when it was mainly 
a neighborhood of farms, became the originators of the 
Brookline Church, bringing their letters from Dudley 
Street. This Deacon Thomas Griggs lived to a great 
age, dying in his ninety-eighth year. He remembered 
the time when, after the death of Washington, he, with 
other schoolchildren, marched in a memorial service 
held to the honor of Washington, each wearing in the 
lapel of his jacket a button, struck off to the memory 
of the great Revolutionary father. He was the head 
of a large and respected family. Great was his comfort 
when, under my ministry, one of these sons who bore 
his father's name, with his wife and two daughters, 
was converted, and baptized into the church. The son 
became successor to his father in the diaconate of the 
church, an office which he still holds and honors. 

About the time I came to Boston, Joseph Cook 
began his famous Monday Lectures, seven or eight 
courses of which I was forward to hear. Such a 
stalwart, fearless and competent apologist, despite all 
the fun some poked at him for his idiosyncrasies, has 
never appeared in Boston since. He discoursed on 
Biology, Evolution, Immortality, Atonement, Current 
Questions and World Conditions. They proved im- 

78 






INTRODUCTION TO NEW ENGLAND 

mensely stimulating to the evangelical public of the 
time. In the light of "the latest and best scholarship" 
of the hour, whether German, English or American, he 
eloquently, in phrases singularly his own, exposed the 
fallacies of much current error, and in most construc- 
tive fashion put new courage into us. 

This Brookline Church to which I had come had 
a good deal of foreign mission history behind it. 
From its ranks had gone forth to Asiatic fields Rev. 
Thomas Simons; Miss Sarah Davis, afterwards Mrs. 
Oliver C. Comstock; the first Mrs. Francis Mason, a 
member of the Griggs family, and Miss Sanderson, a 
daughter of one of the early deacons of the church, and 
who became the wife of Dr. William Ashmore, o£ 
China. The church naturally, therefore, through these 
connections alone, became deeply alive to the foreign 
situation. Various relatives of these missionary families 
were among my foremost parishioners. Dr. Wm. 
Shailer, their early pastor, a generation before my time, 
and, later, Dr. Lamson, as well as Deacon George 
Brooks, had served on the Executive Committee of the 
Missionary Union. The contributions of the church 
at times had risen to the amount of two or three 
thousand dollars per annum. The old monthly concert 
of prayer for Foreign Missions had been regularly 
observed from the origin of the church; and this all 
served yet more deeply to lead my mind in the direction 
of care for this important arm of Christian service. 
After a few months among them, the form of our 
second Sunday services was changed. The afternoon 
preaching service was given up. I preached on Sunday 
evenings and monthly on some form of the world-wide 
work, an effort for which my previous readings and 
lines of missionary thought stood me in good stead. 

I presume it was largely on account of my special 
interest in these matters that the secretaries of the 
Missionary Union were led to bring me into the coun- 
sels of the administration, and to elect me to member- 
ship on the Executive Committee. I was the youngest 
member that had ever served in that important place. 

6 79 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

I shall not soon forget the emotions with which I first 
took my seat on that committee. Note the personnel: 
Alvah Hovey, J. Warren Merrill, E. C. Fitz, Chester 
W. Kingsley, Henry A. Pevear, Robert O. Fuller, 
George W. Chipman, J. W. Converse, A. J. Gordon 
and Henry M. King. Secretaries Murdock and Gard- 
ner, with Treas. Freeman A. Smith, completed the 
executive force. It was a tutelage, indeed, to sit with 
a body of men of that stamp, and to listen to their 
reasonings concerning the numerous and critical details 
of the great work.< Of course we were ever having 
personal calls at "the rooms," from missionaries home 
on furlough, and so my acquaintance with these was 
ever widening. The Lord who so early put me into 
primary relations to the world-wide work was leading 
on to issues larger than I could foresee. 

The broad views which the ample-minded and 
wealthy laymen I came to know in those rooms enter- 
tained of this work, and the example they afforded of 
regular and princely giving, also served to prepare me 
to expect large things of men of similar estate and 
resources, whom I came to meet in my later secretarial 
service involving the necessity of raising large sums 
of money. I had at one time nearly one thousand 
names of foremost laymen of the denomination at 
important centers in most of the States, with whom I 
was in warm personal touch, and these ever considered 
it a privilege to be shareholders, in generous amounts, 
in the great work of missions to the ends of the earth. 

Those were indeed great fellowships, and they were 
educative in the largest sense to me. The benevolent 
giving in those days was so single-eyed and simple- 
hearted, without partisan feeling or jealous envyings, 
which sometimes enter to spoil the sweetness of things. 
Thanks be to God for it, and for my privileged, 
unsought relations thereto! 

During the time of my residence in Brookline, 
Dwight L Moody and Ira D. Sankey returned from 
England and Scotland, flushed with rare evangelistic 
triumphs, and began their great Tabernacle meetings 

so 



INTRODUCTION TO NEW ENGLAND 

in Boston. Into this movement I threw myself largely. 
As a student in Chicago I had known and felt Moody's 
great power. At this later period he had become in 
many ways a very different man from the bustling, 
brusque, impetuous Y. M. C. A. worker I had known. 
He evidently had passed through some great spiritual, 
even psychological, change. He was, in conversation 
especially, more reserved, more composed, although at 
the height of his preaching exercises he became most 
impassioned. As the work moved on, Mr. Moody 
started all sorts of meetings for groups of people that 
naturally consorted together: e. g., for the leather men, 
for merchants, for bankers, for market-men, for inebri- 
ates, meetings for women, with the gifted Miss Frances 
E. Willard in charge. Into these various efforts, 
especially in the inquiry-room work, where thousands 
were pointed to Christ, I flung myself with my whole 
heart for a period of about three months ; indeed, I 
went quite beyond my strength, and soon after brought 
on a breakdown that cost me dearly for several years. 
I found my Brookline people rather opposed to 
anything like protracted meetings. This was partly 
accounted for by their habits of suburban life. Their 
homes were in the town, but their business was in 
Boston, to and from which they went and came with 
the precision of the railroad time-tables. Once home 
at night, in the comfortable family nest, it took a good 
deal of pressure to call them out to an extra evening 
service, although they would attend the weekly prayer- 
meetings with regularity. Besides, their manner of 
thought was of that even sort that they felt but little 
the need of any periodic arousement, that human nature 
generally, in my conviction, needs. Notwithstanding all 
this, there came on a good deal of a revival while I 
was in Brookline, although extra meetings were few. 
I recall one occasion on a communion Sunday, when 
twenty-four persons, nearly all adult converts, came 
forward together to receive the ri^ht hand of fellow- 
ship. The row of persons stretched clear across the 
open space in front of the pews; and it represented 

81 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

additions largely from "the broad aisle." It was a 
touching occasion, most, if not all, of these persons 
having yielded their hearts to Christ under my own 
personal persuasion — "hand-picked fruit." These con- 
verts, alone, were of sufficient means and standing to 
have constituted the nucleus of a strong, new church 
of themselves. But I came to the time when I felt, in 
my state of health, that I needed the climate of the 
West, together with its freer habit of mind; I accepted 
a call to the First Baptist Church of Indianapolis, and 
removed thither. 



82 



REPLANTED IN THE MIDDLE WEST 

LITTLE did I think, when my breakdown in health 
occurred, that the Lord was purposing to remove 
me again to the West. Least of all was I antic- 
ipating an invitation from the Hoosier capital, Indian- 
apolis; but it now stands clear to my mind that that 
was in the plan. My friend and former teacher, Dr. 
Lemuel Moss, was at the time president of Indiana 
University, and often a much-appreciated pulpit-supply 
at the First Baptist Church in the capital city. One 
day came a letter from him, intimating that I might 
look for an invitation to visit the church as a possible 
candidate for its vacant pulpit. I confess I was not 
eager for the position, and at first I was indifferent to 
it. Later, however, I began to think that, even though 
the church was larger in membership than the one in 
Brookline, and the forms of work more varied, perhaps 
on that very account the change might be favorable 
to a more speedy recovery of health. The hinted invi- 
tation came. So I arranged to visit the church, with 
the result that I was heartily and unanimously called 
to the pastorate previously occupied by Dr. Warren 
Randolph. 

The church itself was very composite in character, 
and highly cosmopolitan. It had been served with 
marked ability for about twenty years by Dr. Henry 
Day. In fact, he had put the stamp of his personality 
upon the church, having brought into it the greater 
portion of its constituency, as well as married into 
one of its foremost families, and he did much to make 
my pastorate agreeable. The church had also been 
deeply impressed by yet another personality, and he a 

83 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

layman; namely, Deacon J. R. Osgood, a manufacturer 
of large interests, but also one of the foremost men 
in Sunday-school work in all the West. I first met 
him in Chicago, when a boy of sixteen, and between him 
and B. F. Jacobs was taken one day to the old Meth- 
odist Church Block, and made acquainted with the daily 
noon prayer-meeting, in which at the time D. L. Moody 
so prominently figured. There I first saw this fiery, 
Peter-like man, shaking hands with all at the door 
as they left the meeting, and afterwards on his knees 
with a weeping penitent — an event which much im- 
pressed me, and which I have ever since associated 
with his personality. Mr. Osgood was the foremost 
layman in similar lines of work in Indiana — a great 
soul-winner. At his funeral, it was said, at a stage 
in the service, persons who had been led to Christ 
through his immediate influence were asked to manifest 
it, whereupon scores, even hundreds of persons, arose 
to their feet. The truth is, that practically all the 
deacons of that church were active soul-winners, a 
matter which went far to draw me to them. Deacons 
Sutton, Loomis, Woolen and Burns always had some 
one in leading, in connection with their several Bible 
classes, ripe for profession of faith. 

An intelligent, calm evangelism was ever character- 
istic of the people who controlled the sentiment of the 
church. There was a great Sunday school, numbering 
five or six hundred, under the conduct of Deacon Wm. 
Smock, who was also our enthusiastic choirmaster. It 
was in that Sunday school that I first saw an orchestra, 
employed under the conduct of the ablest bandmaster 
of the city, to lead the wondrous singing of the school, 
and which also was available for various social and 
public functions in the society. The wave of enthusiasm 
which animated the great school, the first Sunday I 
appeared, was so assuring to my spirits that I felt 
sure here was the atmosphere in which I could best 
flourish ; the current of activity was in itself so strong 
and spontaneous that one felt caught up and borne 
along by it. 

84 



REPLANTED IN THE MIDDLE WEST 

Then there were throngs of young men, just waiting 
for a magnetic touch, to be led along and into almost 
any form of aggressive work. It was not long until 
I had formed an organization of these whom we termed 
"The Yokefellows," that came to number one hundred 
and fifty or more active members. These became also 
a recruiting band for other men, some of them uncom- 
mon winners of their fellows to Christ. Once a month 
we had a simple evening dinner served in the vestry 
of the church, which became very popular and whole- 
some in its effects. Out of these growing numbers of 
young people I was always finding new material for 
various forms of service. 

This church at that time was easily at the front 
in the State in all forms of religious enterprise. The 
State, for long, had a reputation for old-time notions 
of anti-missionism, an uneducated and unsalaried min- 
istry, opposition to Sunday schools, and hyper-Calvin- 
istic ideas in general. This church, however, stood in 
living unlikeness to all that. The church was one of 
the largest regular contributors to Foreign Missions in 
the West. Several of its members, including Rev. 
W. E. Clark and wife, had personally entered the 
service. Dr. Day himself had once been offered the 
secretaryship of the Missionary Union, and was on its 
Board of Managers. The brother of Deacon Osgood 
was the associate of Judson for years in Burma, and 
the practical workman who printed Judson's Burman 
Bible. The church also made much of the monthly 
missionary concert, and a host of strong women kept 
alive a woman's circle, auxiliary to the Woman's 
Missionary Society of the West. 

During my stay, there came on one very marked 
revival. Scores believed and were added to the church. 
Probably the inciting human aeent was the presence 
in the city of the so-called "Boy Evangelist," Rev. 
Thomas Harrison, a Methodist, who held a continuous 
meeting with the Rev. S. M. Vernon, D.D., one of the 
most solid and balanced of ministers, for fully three 
months. Two or three thousand people professed con- 

85 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

version. All the churches that took any kind of a 
sympathetic attitude received numerous additions. 
Great numbers came to our church. Dr. William Alvin 
Bartlett, of the Second Presbyterian Church, on one 
Sunday gave the hand of fellowship to over two 
hundred new members. The row of converts received 
reached entirely around the outside aisles and across 
both ends of the large audience-room. Such an occa- 
sion was never before witnessed in that church, which 
was probably the most conservative body, tempera- 
mentally, in the city. All the pastors were most deeply 
stirred. During this period, my brother-in-law, Rev. 
C. T. Roe, helped me efficiently in special meetings, 
during which my two eldest children were converted 
and baptized. 

While this revival was in progress, the Baptist 
Anniversaries were held in our church. Numbers of 
the delegates attended various services which Mr. 
Harrison was conducting. His preaching, as Mr. 
Harrison often said, was not remarkable in itself. He 
would often say: 

"I am well aware that numbers of you pastors can 
preach better than I can. God has called me to start 
people into action who all their lives have heard the 
best of preaching. I know just enough to presume on 
that." But God has his "times and seasons," do what 
we will. 

I threw myself into very earnest study while I was 
in Indianapolis. Perhaps I studied too hard. Prof. Wm. 
R. Harper, in Chicago, was just then stirring the 
country with his wide travels, and his correspondence 
courses in Hebrew. I joined in one of these courses, 
and gave months to work in these lines. I even worked 
out in manuscript an elementary Hebrew grammar. 
Together with this work, I one winter entered an ex- 
tended course of Sunday evening lectures on "Old 
Testament Times and Heroes," and they drew the 
people wonderfully, especially many intelligent Jewish 
people, merchants and traders. They expressed them- 
selves as surprised that a Christian preacher could find 

86 



REPLANTED IN THE MIDDLE WEST 

so much to admire and exploit in their Old Testament 
saints. One of these, in particular, would walk home 
with me on occasions, and in my study would kneel and 
pray with me to "the Eternal" in his own way, mainly, 
of course, in Hebraic thought. This man wanted to 
take me with him to Palestine on a trip, could I have 
gone. 

At all events, despite some narrow prejudices felt 
by a few in my congregation against the Jews as a 
race, the experience of that winter went far to assure 
me that if there were a little more — nay, a good deal 
more — love for the Jews, instead of the bitter, preju- 
diced ill will that often characterizes so-called Chris- 
tians, towards God's ancient people, "the veil upon their 
face" would the sooner be removed and we should see 
them recognizing their real and only Messiah. 

Indianapolis, as a city, afforded a rare location, also, 
to one who welcomes a large relation to the churches 
and interests, including a college like Franklin, through- 
out a whole State. The "Convention work," from this 
point of view, for me took on a fresh interest while 
here. Brethren from the smaller cities and towns were 
always dropping into our services in a way that kept 
one on tiptoe of interest for friendly offices. 

It was while I was there that there came one day 
to my door a former Hoosier boy, a native of the town 
of Seymour, with his wife. He had a rare story to tell. 
He had run away from home when a fifteen-year-old 
boy and gone to Canada. He soon after enlisted in 
the army. He was finally sent to India. He was 
stationed in the great cantonment in Secunderabad, in 
the heart of our Telugu mission, where he fell in 
with our missionary, Rev. W. W. Campbell, and he 
and his wife were converted. I refer to Mr. and 
Mrs. John Newcomb. When Mr. Newcomb's term 
of enlistment was up, he was returned by the authorities 
to his American home. This couple came to me to 
apply for Christian baptism, which they had never 
received. The case occasioned much interest in the 
church, which welcomed them with great warmth. 

87 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

They soon after removed to Des Moines, Iowa, where, 
in a religious awakening, these friends received a 
gracious and marked visitation of the Divine Spirit. 
Shortly thereafter, they applied to the Executive Com- 
mittee of the Missionary Union in Boston, were accepted 
and sent as missionaries to the Telugus in India. 

They have now been serving the cause successfully 
for about thirty years. I visited them at their station 
in 1891, particulars of which visit will be given in a 
later chapter. Enough now to say, here was another 
of those vital links, together with others previously 
referred to, binding me to the cause of missions to 
the heathen, a link directly related to the providential 
sphere of my later toils. 

But, during the greater period of my residence in 
Indianapolis, I was far from being in good health. 
The climate was disappointing and the cares were 
heavy. I wondered that the people put up with my 
labors as considerately as they did. They kindly gave 
me one long furlough for a trip to Europe of four 
months' duration. But I was in no fit condition for 
seeing endless new sights, visiting art galleries and the 
like. I returned little, if any, improved, and finally 
resolved to resign my charge and go to my father's 
old farm in Illinois, for the sake of a very quiet life, 
such as I saw was indispensable, if I was ever to 
recover my lost health. 

The church tried to prevail upon me to reconsider 
my decision, even offering me a year of furlough for 
entire rest. But I dared not accept such generosity, 
which I was sure would be disadvantageous for a 
church located and conditioned as they were. 

I had, however, passed through an experience, 
before I resigned, that gave me an entirely new and 
hopeful outlook on God's gracious purposes in my 
behalf, so that I resigned the pastorate for a much 
less conspicuous one, but one which I was confident 
would prove a veritable Elim to me. And so I found 
it, leaving Indianapolis with the sweetest of relation- 
ships all round. 

88 



XI 
MY JABBOK AND PENIEL 

1HAVE before referred to the breakdown in health 
which overtook me in Brookline, and continued like 
a nightmare to haunt me until near the end of my 
stay in Indianapolis. The trouble was in the nature 
of nervous dyspepsia, accompanied by the most per- 
plexing of head troubles, almost incessant vertigo, and 
creeping sensations in the brain cells. It was the 
dreadful uncertainty of what it all meant, that proved 
so trying. Medicines were of no value; long periods 
of rest did not relieve me more than temporarily; and 
even changes of field of labor did not serve to eliminate 
the difficulty. 

Doubtless, however, the intense and often exciting 
manner of my Boston life had exhausted my nerve 
force. The strain put upon me in an exacting pastorate, 
the attendance every Monday on ministers' meetings, 
and upon Joseph Cook's Monday noon lectures, with 
an afternoon put in on the long sessions of the Execu- 
tive Committee of the Missionary Union, and once-a- 
month attendance on a Ministers' Club, left me by 
Monday night of each week clean exhausted. Then, 
much reading, to which I was on all sides stimulated, 
finished me. Suddenly, one morning, I found I could 
scarcely read at all, and for nearly two years I could not 
read a book. Nor could I write, except with the 
greatest nervous distress. 

Not until the return from my first long vacation 
in Europe, after six years of suffering, was I brought 
to a realization of the deeper seat of the trouble than 
anything I have yet indicated. In the interval of my 
absence in Europe, I found that my church was show- 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

ing signs of suffering in several ways. A famous 
new preacher, Dr. Arthur T. Pierson, had meantime 
come into the city, and was arresting wide attention. 
His night services, which for lack of accommodations 
in his own church building were now transferred to 
the Grand Opera-house of the city, were thronged. 
My own congregation, only a block away from his, 
was immensely depleted thereby, beyond anything it 
had before shown. Of course this also acted further 
to depress me. 

For weeks together, however, I was in a helpless 
sort of brown study as to what this all meant for me 
and for my parish. At length a movement was insti- 
tuted for bringing to the city the noted evangelist, 
Maj. D. W. Whittle, of Chicago, for a campaign among 
us. Now, I had known this devoted man in my student 
days, from the time when he came home from the war 
and began his evangelistic career, and as the close 
friend of Mr. Moody. These meetings were also to 
start in our house of worship. At the first meeting, 
the Major opened up with a close-fitting demon- 
stration of the seriousness of the loss of "the witness" 
of the Holy Spirit on the part of Christians. In the 
course of his thought he pictured some typical cases, 
and described certain ineffectual efforts to regain the 
lost blessing. One would try this expedient, and then 
that, but no "witness" came. At length the Major 
made the point that, in case this blessing is lost, if one 
will examine himself, he will find that at some point, 
perhaps unconsciously, he has been resisting or denying 
outright some plain truth taught in the Scriptures, and 
he would never regain "the witness of the Spirit until 
he first accepted the witness plainly zvritten in the 
divine Word." Instantly the query arose in my mind, 
"What truth have I been thus denying?" I at once 
recalled that not long before, in an hour of repining 
at my trials, I had spoken outright to one dearer to 
me than life, that that utterance of Paul in the eighth 
of Romans, "that all things work together for good 
to them that love God," could not be true, because 

90 



MY JABBOK AND PENIEL 



demonstrably all things in my life were working for 
ill, and everybody seemed to know it. Suffice to say 
that I soon felt assured that my difficulty at bottom 
was more spiritual than physical. 

On the second evening I went early to the meeting. 
As I entered the door I observed that the Major had 
his throat muffled up. As I greeted him he explained, 
speaking with great difficulty: 

"Brother Mabie, I shall not be able to preach 
to-night. I have an attack from my old enemy, the 
quinsy, and I must take a midnight train for home 
and get the malady doctored up, else I shall have very 
serious trouble." 

"Well," said I, "Major, whether you go or stay, I 
think I should tell you your address last night opened 
my eyes to my own state, so your service, short as it 
has been, has not been wholly fruitless." He thanked 
me, and as the people gathered he rose and explained 
his condition, and added: "I shall have to call on some 
of these pastors to carry on the meeting to-night." 

A prayer or two having been offered, the Major 
called on me first to speak. Having acknowledged to 
him so much of enlightenment from the previous meet- 
ing, I felt I must be equally frank with that congre- 
gation. So, rising from my seat in the front row, I 
proceeded to repeat what I had just said to the evan- 
gelist. But I further said: "The fact is, my friends, I 
have been for a long time destitute of that witnessing 
Spirit of God in my heart which I have previously 
known, and more, although preaching very orthodox 
sermons, I have been very sadly losing my faith, and, 
unless I soon get relief, I fear it is all over with me 
and my value for the ministry." With that I broke 
down, sank into my seat like lead, and was heart- 
broken with grief. 

In a moment three or four brethren were on their 
knees — among them Dr. Pierson, who sat with the 
singers. How he prayed for me — telling the Lord all 
about me and my needs, and even my unspoken dis- 
tresses. As he prayed, the Spirit whispered: "Now, 

91 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

go to-morrow morning to the study of that brother and 
ask him to pray with you alone." 

I went home to a night of restless heart-searching, 
and in the morning I was in as deep darkness as ever. 
I was, however, fixed in my purpose' to go to my 
brother minister, who, I knew, understood far more 
of spiritual things than I did. I made my way to his 
study in the Second Presbyterian Church. I explained 
that I must have extra strength for the task before 
me the next Sunday morning, when I intended to 
resign my pastorate and go to farming, for it was 
no use trying longer, with my poor health, to sustain 
myself and family in the ministry. 

"Oh, my brother," exclaimed he, "God will take 
care of you. Let me tell you a little of my experience." 
And he spoke of a certain crisis, though full of self- 
humiliation to him, that he had passed through a few 
years before, that was the beginning of days to him. 

After we had talked for an hour, I remarked: 

"Well, I came to beg your prayers." 

He surprised me my saying: "After you." 

How could I pray? The heavens were like brass 
over me, but we knelt. All I could do was to tell the 
Lord my distress. I shortly came to the point where 
I must give up all, accept God's ultimatum, and (as I 
thought) renounce the ministry forever. I had been 
for twenty years laboring hard to prepare for it, 'twas 
true, but now I must give it all up — lay my very Isaac 
upon the altar, and crawl away into obscurity to die. 
It seemed very hard; could there be anything in the 
goodness of God to require all that? 

But there was no escape. I must take the leap in 
the dark. So I surrendered all, simply collapsed, and 
cried like a child. That moment it seemed to me as if 
the crust of the earth just opened and I went plunging 
through, down, down, towards the bottomless depths, 
but the surprising thing was, that the deeper down I 
sank, the more blessed it was, till I sank, surprisingly, 
into — the bosom of God! 

As I found myself there, the Lord seemed to ask: 

92 



MY JABBOK AND PENIEL 



"Did you think I had forsaken you? Do you not 
know that my love for you and your life-course is 
immeasurably deeper than any interest you yourself 
have? Now, commit all to me, and 'I will make of 
thee' that better product than you yourself can make." 

The fact is, the Lord had a different plan of life 
for me than the one I conscientiously, but ambi- 
tiously, in a self -centered way, was bent on working- 
out, and the only way in which he could realize his 
plan was to allow my craft to go upon the rocks in 
titter shipwreck, and then fit me out with a better 
craft. I have already lived long enough to see the 
wisdom and grace of his plan vindicated beyond any- 
thing I earlier hoped for, or could otherwise have 
reached. 

This disclosure was the greatest surprise of my 
whole life. But I arose in a new world, and to an 
entirely new conception of the ministry. I went home 
and to my study, to turn, with a zest I never before 
knew, to my Bible — my much-neglected Bible, minister 
though I was — and I began to look up the matter of 
faith — faith as a manner of life — not for the sake of 
an orthodoxy, but for certainties to go by. I fell upon 
Heb. 11:6: "Without faith [faith as a habit of life], 
it is impossible to be well-pleasing to him." As I pon- 
dered it and applied it in a new way to my recent 
habits of thought and life, even my religious and theolog- 
ical habits, I saw, as I had not seen before, many, many 
things — among them this: that one might be ever so 
orthodox in head, and yet be deeply heterodox in will. 
That one who allows himself as I had, and as people 
all around us are doing, to depend on mere second 
causes, is practically shutting God himself out of imme- 
diate relation to life altogether. In short, I saw that 
orthodox evangelical as I was, I might have been a 
rank materialist, and yet have had as much comfort 
out of a long period of my past life as I had gotten. 

This awful practical heresy of the life — and of the 
ministerial life — which had unwittingly taken possession 
of me, and which, but for this providential interference 

93 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

in my self-chosen plan of conducting my life, would 
have led on to the certain ruin of all, stood out 
shockingly, as dreadful unbelief. 

For days together, thereafter, I simply lay on my 
couch, and let roll over me, like the billows of the 
sea, that word, "And Abraham believed God," "And 
Abraham believed God." I could do naught else. My 
sin was that I had ceased to believe God when sight 
failed. I could believe in circumstances when they 
appeared promising, but not even God when the appear- 
ances seemed against me. The fact is, I was converted 
in a new way into faith in the divine providence. I 
took back my horrid infidel utterance, that "all things 
[do not] work together for good" (to the filial-hearted) 
"to those who [in this sense] love God." The fact that 
I could not always trace the form or method of the 
providence had absolutely nothing to do with the 
reality of it. 

Thus receiving once more, in the light of deeper 
experience, the "witness" once for all written in the 
Word, and asking nothing else, I regained the first- 
hand and immediate witness of the personal Holy 
Spirit of God I had by degrees lost. 

I was at peace with everybody and everything. 
How different the Bible looked to me now! What 
did I care for a thousand and one speculations and 
opinions about the Bible, in this or that school of 
criticism? I had found my own Bible, and it spoke 
even from between the lines to my spirit, as I had 
never before thought possible, and I began to preach it. 
My people at once discovered that they had a new 
minister, and my public services and prayer-meetings 
immediately took on new life. 

Then the gradual — not immediate— restoration to 
health, to nerve-balance, with sufficient vigor, at least, 
to enable me with abounding joy to prosecute my very 
laborious and widely extended toils since, is evidence 
that the very Author of my being had taken my case 
freshly in hand. 

One may inquire: "Does the matter which you are 

94 



MY JABBOK AND PENIEL 



emphasizing imply the necessary experience after con- 
version of what some call 'the second blessing-'? Does 
it imply the 'higher Christian life'?" Well, whether 
a crisis such as this be the second, or twenty-second, 
does not matter. The main thing is, that it is divine 
blessing, with or without any type of hard-and-fast 
phenomena, and it is simply Christian life, neither 
"higher" nor "lower"— simply spiritual as opposed to 
carnal. 

When Jacob of old, after his night of wrestling at 
the ford of the Jabbok, had his thigh disjointed, he 
passed over a line between the old and the new; the 
sun rose upon him, and he called the place "Peniel," 
"Face of God," "for," said he, "I have seen God face 
to face and I am preserved alive." But it was the life 
preserved, as of one risen from the dead, that caught 
the vision. His name also was changed, from "sup- 
planter" to "prince of God." So may it be with us. 
Not an experience once for all realized, but a principle 
once for all accepted — that is the norm of the habitual 
and moment-by-moment living. I would not claim that 
any mortal ever did or can live uniformly, without slip 
or lapse, such life perfectly. I only hold that such is 
the norm of the new life, per se, from the moment 
of conversion. 

But it makes all difference in the joy and power of 
our lives, whether we hold ourselves by habitual resolve 
to that kind of living, or fall into the careless way of 
justifying ourselves in very easy-going compromises, or 
fleshly self-will, and become, in the very habit of our 
lives, miserable and lean backsliders, needing as frequent 
renewals. This is only representative of what occurs 
sooner or later, probably, in the lives of most ministers 
and missionaries who ever become particularly effective 
as soul-winners, or in other religious achievements of 
much moment. Thus it has been with the Finneys, the 
Moodys, the Judsons, the Morgans, the Meyers and the 
Truetts. These all have had in one form or another 
the sort of experience of which I am testifying. Said 
Jesus to Simon Peter, even though already doubtless a 

7 95 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

renewed man : " Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to 
have thee, that he may sift thee as wheat; but I have 
prayed for thee that thy faith fail not; and when thou 
art converted [turned again in this deep sense], 
strengthen thy brethren." 



96 



XII 
FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE 

MY imagination was early kindled, through contact 
with my English pastor and his family, to a 
sentiment for what lay beyond the seas. At 
length, after a period of broken health in pastoral 
service, I was enabled, in 1882, to sail away on the 
Cunard ship "Parthia," from Boston to Liverpool. 

Among my companions on the voyage were the 
brilliant judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. — now associate justice on 
the United States Supreme bench — and Hon. Robert 
Treat Paine, a close friend of my revered former col- 
lege teacher, Dr. William Mathews. Mr. Paine, espe- 
cially, became extremely cordial, and entered with 
enthusiasm into my anticipations of this, my first visit 
to the Old World, which he had visited many times. 

Once in Liverpool, I made it a first duty to attend 
a mid-week service in the Myrtle Street Baptist Church, 
of which Hugh Stowell Brown, one of the foremost 
Baptists in England, was pastor. I was much im- 
pressed with his strong personality. On the Saturday 
following, I took train for Manchester in order on 
Sunday to hear the famous Dr. Alexander Maclaren 
preach. His sermon, an interpretation of the Lord's 
Supper, was remarkable both for its simplicity and its 
depth. 

After the sermon, I sought out Dr. Maclaren in his 
retiring-room. As I entered, seeing the Doctor was 
looking worn and exhausted, I half apologized for 
obtruding on his privacy. He answered he had been 
suffering from nervous exhaustion for some time, and 
was preaching but once a day. 

97 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

"Oh," said he, "I can still convey the charge, but 
the effort burns the wire." 

I further explained to him that, while I had letters 
of introduction from Dr. Murdock and Dr. Lorimer to 
Mr. Spurgeon, I regretted I had no letter to him. But 
I said, "I venture to mention a name you may recall — 
Dr. Charles H. Roe." 

At this his countenance lighted up, and he inquired, 
"What! Roe of Birmingham?" "The same," I an- 
swered. He then added : "I was among those who, when 
Roe left us for America with a family of ten children, 
on a sailing-vessel, in 1851, went to the dock in Liver- 
pool to see him off. I particularly recall his tall figure 
as he walked through the crowds on the dock, carrying 
the baby of the family on his shoulder." 

I remarked: "That baby is my wife." 

At that he threw up his hands in surprise, and 
said: "Do be seated. Now, I do not have to preach 
this evening, and I am giving you my street number, 
with directions. So, at four o'clock, please come to 
my house to tea and spend the evening. I want to 
know what became of that large family of children." 

I went, and it proved to me a great evening, as 
our conversation ranged widely over things English 
and American. 

In respect to his sermonic habits, I was surprised 
to hear Dr. Maclaren say that he never wrote a sermon 
before preaching it, although he had trouble enough to 
make sense out of what his stenographer brought to 
him for revision. However, all the world knows what 
a close student he was, especially of the Scriptures 
themselves in the original tongues ; and how uncommon 
were his endowments for the most felicitous phrasing 
of his thoughts on his feet. 

This memorable visit was the beginning of cordial 
mutual relations with that gifted preacher, which con- 
tinued till his death. While in attendance on the Bap- 
tist Congress in London in 1895, I was invited by 
Mr. Roberts, the successor of Dr. Maclaren in the 
Union Church at Manchester, to occupy that pulpit for 

98 



FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE 



a couple of Sundays. And I also had the pleasure in 
London of presenting to Dr. Maclaren my wife, whom 
he had last seen as a child on her father's shoulder. 

After Manchester, I also spent a Sunday in my 
father-in-law's old church in Birmingham, in Heneage 
Street. Sitting in the old family pew under the side 
gallery, I heard the pastor, one Mr. Hailstone, preach. 
After the sermon I made myself known and was asked 
to preach in the evening, which I did, and at the close 
of the service I had quite a reception from many in 
the congregation who remembered with great affection 
their former pastor, and inquired tenderly after various 
members of the family. 

Thence I went northward to the beautiful Yorkshire 
village of Middleton-in-Teesdale. This was the place 
of Father Roe's first pastorate, and there several mem- 
bers of his family were born. I was welcomed with 
exceeding cordiality by Robert Bainbridge, Esq., the 
principal personage of the place, and the general super- 
intendent of the London & Yorkshire Lead Mining 
Company, a position he held for forty consecutive years, 
successor to his father-in-law, Mr. Robert Stagg, who 
also served in his position for the same length of time. 
Mr. Bainbridge occupied the great mansion owned by 
the corporation, and the wonderful English gardens 
which surrounded it were full of charm to me. At 
the time of my visit my host very kindly drove me 
about the country, which abounded with magnificent 
views of the distant hills of Cumberland and Northum- 
berland. My wife, in the latter sixties, had spent 
several weeks as the guest of the family, out of which 
sprang a warm friendship with one of the daughters, 
afterwards married to Rev. T. Harwood Pattison, first 
a pastor in Middleton, then removing to this country 
and holding pastorates in New Haven and Albany, and 
finally a professorship in Rochester Theological Semi- 
nary. 

Next I proceeded to Scotland, visiting Edinburgh, 
Glasgow and Stirling. At Edinburgh I met and heard 
for the first time the finished preacher, Dr. William 

99 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Landells, pastor of Dublin Street Church, and earlier 
of Regent's Park Church, London. 

My first touch with Scotland was overwhelmingly 
impressive. The massive architecture which covers the 
heights of the city, as seen from Prince's Street, is 
like that of an immense medieval castle. Carlton hill, 
Arthur's seat, the university, St. Giles Cathedral, Knox's 
house, and the old Holyrood castle, with many relics 
of Mary Queen of Scots' time, Roslyn Chapel and 
Hawthornden — a great retreat of the persecuted Cove- 
nanters — were alive with historic suggestion and inter- 
est. In Glasgow I met American friends — Dr. Frank 
M. Ellis and wife, then of Boston, and Rev. Geo. 
Thomas Dow ling and wife, of Cleveland. With them, 
joined also later by Dr. Henry E. Robins, I journeyed 
afterwards to interesting points in England, and also 
on the Continent. 

Nothing in all England is more charming than the 
lake district. We came down by coach from Penrith 
to Windermere. The ride through the mountains that 
hem in the pretty lakes is entrancing. As we came 
suddenly within sight of beautiful Grasmere, there was 
a thin mist over the whole valley, through which the 
westering sun shot its rays with transfiguring beauty. 
We whirled past Rydal Mount, the home of Words- 
worth, and by the former homes of De Quincey, Cole- 
ridge, Thomas Arnold and Mrs. Hemans, delighted 
with the intermingling of fine scenery and literary asso- 
ciations. At Bowness, Windermere and Coniston we 
had touches of real English country life that have been 
with us through all the years that have intervened. 
Ruskin's cottage at Coniston we were charmed to see. 

On the way "up" to London, our party stopped over 
at Kettering, to visit the church in which Andrew 
Fuller preached, and to see his grave in the yard at 
the rear, and also to look upon the Widow Wallis* 
house in which the English Baptist Foreign Mission 
Society was born, following the resistless appeal of 
Carey. A day at Bedford also was enjoyed, taking in 
the Bunyan memorial church, known as the "Bunyan 

100 



FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE 



Meeting," and the adjoining village of Elstow, where, 
in a little, thatched cottage, Bunyan's wife and his blind 
daughter Mary lived and made lace for a sustenance, 
during the long imprisonment of the author of the 
immortal "Pilgrim's Progress," "The Holy War" and 
"Grace Abounding." 

The evening I arrived in London I was met with a 
summons from my friend Dowling: "Hurry up and get 
your supper. Spurgeon is to preach to-night, and I 
already have the necessary tickets for the Tabernacle." 
To see and hear the great Spurgeon was one of the 
cherished ambitions of my life. The meeting to which 
we went was the mid-week prayer-meeting. Spurgeon, 
having spent the day at the orphanage, came in a 
little late, but the deacons, all seated on the platform, 
started things off. 

In a few moments Spurgeon tiptoed in, while some 
one was engaged in prayer. Instantly we all realized 
that a great presence was among us. In a moment he 
rose and said: "Brethren, the atmosphere seems a little 
heavy here to-night: let us look to our Father for his 
blessing." In reality, there was a thunder-storm on. 
This was his opening sentence: "O our Father! we need 
thee. The thunders without are rolling and the light- 
ning is flashing, but we, thy children, nestle beneath 
thy wings, O our Father." Instantly all were in a 
different frame. Spurgeon was always keen to observe 
strangers in his audience, and especially those from 
America. He soon discovered four or five of us 
sitting together. While some one was praying he sent 
a deacon, who touched me on the shoulder and softly 
inquired if I had a card: the pastor might call on me 
to pray. A little later Spurgeon called me out. I 
wondered if the man of God was reading my heart, but 
I rose and tried to pray, trembling with emotion. 

At the close of this meeting, Spurgeon called us to 
him and asked us to come to the upstairs larger meet- 
ing, and also to tarry after the sermon and meet him 
in his anteroom to make arrangements for an afternoon 
at the Stockwell Orphanage. The sermon that then 

101 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

came on was from the text: "With Jacob it is a day 
of trouble, but he shall be saved out of it." That ser- 
mon, as I told him afterwards, certainly was intended 
for me. It brought such illumination respecting the 
goodness of God's providence, despite all trials through 
which we are called to pass. After the sermon we all 
met him and received the directions for meeting him 
at the orphanage next day. He himself, prompt to the 
moment, was at the gate to meet us, clad in a linen 
duster and a soft hat, and called out: 

"How are you all, Doctors? All Americans are 
Doctors, so I make no mistake." In any case, at that 
moment we felt pretty small, whether we had academic 
titles or not. Spurgeon himself escorted us through 
department after department. As we would enter a 
classroom, the lads would break out with a hearty 
cheer, and "Hurrah! Welcome!" Spurgeon would 
reply : 

"How are you all to-day, my lads?" 

"Pretty well, thank you, sir" (in unison). 

"Thank God for that, my boys: it is He that gives 
you health." 

We also visited the new swimming-pool. Some boys 
were attired for the sport, and while we looked on 
Spurgeon would count off, "One, two, three," and 
with a great splash all the boys would dash in and 
pull for the opposite end of the tank, and Spurgeon, 
with us, would cheer for the winner. 

We came to the great dining-hall, and saw the 
hundreds of boys at mess. Spurgeon gave them a 
short talk. We were taken to a small side room and 
served by Deacon Charlesworth, the superintendent, 
with a simple tea; and while we partook, Spurgeon 
told us of how the orphanage had come to him. "You 
know," said he, "God has given me this orphanage as 
a shield against wicked and jealous criticisms that 
attended my early ministry. Besides, 'the offence of 
the cross is not ceased:' men still hate our gospel, and 
any man who preaches it fearlessly. But no one can 
find fault with caring for orphaned children, and so 

102 



FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE 



latterly the critics have given me some rest." He told 
us of wondrous answers to prayer, "often when we 
had come to about the bottom of the meal-barrel." 

One of our party inquired: "Well, now, Mr. Spur- 
geon, shall we all go home and proceed to start orphan- 
ages ?" 

"Oh, by no means; but if, in the providence of God, 
you feel forced to begin such a work, then woe be to 
you if you don't start an orphanage." 

He further told us this: "Once a party of London 
ministers, Dr. Wm. Brock among them, were sitting at 
this table as you are, and I was telling them of some 
of God's marked interpositions in our behalf at very 
critical junctures, when Dr. Brock, in his great, gruff 
voice, spoke up : 

" 'Now, Bro. Spurgeon, our hearts are deeply touched 
by these incidents you have been telling us. But I am 
questioning if it is altogether wise to tell them too 
publicly, for one of these days you may find yourself 
badly in the lurch, and then the cause may correspond- 
ingly suffer.' 

"Just then there came a knock at that door and a 
messenger handed in a note asking me to present a 
claim for £2,000, at a certain bank, and it would be 
honored. 

" 'Listen to this,' said I, and read the note. 

"Brock instantly rose, and, with choking voice, said: 
'Brethren, all knives and forks aside ; I stand rebuked ; 
let us thank God for his wonderful care of his servant, 
and that he has founded this orphanage.' ' ! 

Passing over to the Continent through Holland and 
Belgium to Cologne, our party kept together for a 
trip up the Rhine. Then at Lucerne Dr. Robins and 
I began a month of tramping over several of the 
passes of the Alps, and returned to America in the 
autumn following. 



103 



XIII 
TWO DECISIVE CHAPTERS IN A LIFE-COURSE 

AS I have previously intimated, the hour came 
when, in connection with my five years' labor in 
Indianapolis, and in the light of the transitional 
crisis I have already referred to, I became assured it 
would be wise for me to retire for a season to some 
less strenuous form of service: I needed to unstring 
the bow, and to have more outdoor life in a more 
bracing climate. When my thought became known, I 
was invited, to the surprise of many, to Belvidere, 
Illinois, to take charge of the old church of my child- 
hood. The church was extremely cordial in its invi- 
tation, and practically gave me carte blanche respecting 
my form of labor and use of time. They were content 
to have one preaching service on the Sabbath, and left 
me free to do such pastoral work as I felt equal to. 
My father was still living on a farm three miles from 
town, and for more than a year my family and I made 
our home with him. This took me back to the really 
simple life. The whole community, in town and 
country, was open to me, and I was soon renewing 
acquaintances of former years and making many new 
ones. My congregations immediately began to grow. 
During the weektime, I read and wrote but little; 
my studies were mostly confined to the Greek New 
Testament, and in my line of preaching I went back 
to the most elementary forms. I adapted my thought 
to the simpler minds, which was in the way of reinter- 
pretation of the very things which had come into my 
life years before, in that same environment. It seemed 
to please the farmer folk in the surrounding district, 
in which I had been reared, that I had come back to 

104 



DECISIVE CHAPTERS IN A LIFE-COURSE 

them; and in my wide visitation of the homes, I found 
everywhere a respect for my religion. I was but a poor 
prophet ; perhaps it was on that account that I cer- 
tainly was "not without honor" among them; they 
surprised me by their devotion and response to my 
messages. My native air, together with light forms 
of exercise on the farm, began to renew my youth and 
freshness. Sense of public responsibility was much 
lightened, and I soon began to sleep and eat like a 
lusty boy. There was no little exchange of thought 
among the "natives" respecting the reasons of my 
return to these old haunts of my youth, and this, for 
some reason, was so uncommonly sympathetic, that it 
also became a contributing factor to returning strength. 
I soon began to plan for certain neighborhood devo- 
tional meetings, held once a week only, in the farm- 
houses of a wide area surrounding the town, and it 
was not long until it was easy, even in midsummer, to 
gather anywhere from fifty to a hundred people in a 
neighborhood for a religious meeting of an informal 
sort. To some of my old-time acquaintances, there 
soon came on a marked renewal of religious life. Some 
of them, indeed, were moved openly to make acknowl- 
edgments among themselves of their former lapses 
and indifferences, of their habits of evil speaking, etc., 
and they began heartily to second my endeavors. Among 
the converts were my sister Helen and my second daugh- 
ter Florence, at nine years of age, who until this day has 
been an unusual Christian worker, and now the wife of 
Deacon George A. Morse, of Melrose, Massachusetts. 

There was an addition of about one hundred mem- 
bers to the church. These were, in many cases, heads 
of families, and previously far from religious ; in- 
deed, these new additions were drawn from classes 
hitherto unthought of as likely material for church 
life and service. The work deeply impressed the 
whole countryside, and the old church took on new 
heart and hope. I found that the antecedent life and 
work of the English pastor, Roe, previously described 
in these pages, had been a subsoil preparation for all 

105 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

that I was now called to plant and cultivate. The 
traditions respecting the "Old Man Eloquent," his 
preaching power, and the corroborative living of his 
rare family, were assets of great value to reinforce my 
labors. I often felt I had but to refer to typical achieve- 
ments of the earlier era, to find a basis, without more 
said, to close a case. I baptized people in that com- 
munity who frankly said to me, and confessed before 
the church, that the regenerating work had been per- 
formed in their hearts under that remarkable ministry 
of "Elder Roe," a half -generation earlier. In all this, 
I found a remarkable fulfillment of that Scripture, 
"Other men labored and ye are entered into their 
labors." 

At length the interest became so great in these 
quiet efforts, that I was obliged to open the church, and 
preach twice on Sunday, and once, at least, during the 
week, in country neighborhoods surrounding, and I also 
found that I could do it without strain and with ever- 
increasing fervor, and even a sense of returning 
strength. I was everywhere among the people, praying 
with them in cornfields, or behind a haystack, or in the 
kitchen with the housewives, inviting to church and 
pressing the claims of the gospel. Some were con- 
verted while in their fields or by the roadside. In the 
midst of all this there came to my help one of the 
veterans in evangelistic services, widely known in New 
York State and throughout Illinois as one of the 
truest and most winning of the old-time evangelists. 
This was the Rev. Lewis Raymond, of Chicago. He 
himself in early life had been profoundly influenced by 
Rev. Jabez Swan, one of the foremost of Connecticut's 
evangelists, and a man that also wrought widely in 
New York and other Eastern States. Raymond often 
quoted him, and described situations with which the 
man dealt in his own unique fashion. Raymond also 
had been a chaplain in the Civil War, and was full of 
the heroic terminology of the camp and the battlefield. 
One morning, he and I drove up to see General Fuller, 
an old appointee of President Lincoln, as adjutant- 

106 



DECISIVE CHAPTERS IN A LIFE-COURSE 

general of the Illinois troops in our Civil War. As 
we drove up to the entrance to the stately home, the 
General appeared at the gate. 

"Good-morning, General!" shouted the evangelist; 
"we are out this morning reviewing the Silver Greys." 

"Indeed," replied the General ; "I haven't seen you 
since the war, or heard you were here." 

"Why, General," responded Raymond, "I've been 
shelling the woods here for ten days; strange you 
haven't heard it." 

Well, in this tactful way, the old gentleman would 
open up a conversation, and many and happy were the 
results. He became greatly interested in the sheriff of 
the county, whose wife had been converted, and how 
he would pray for him. 

"O Lord, put the sheriff under arrest: send us out 
with a search-warrant: handcuff him, if necessary, but 
bring him in, anyhow." 

His quaintness was an exceedingly attractive feature. 
He won the love of the whole community, and greatly 
strengthened my younger hands. Father Raymond, 
also, later helped me in special meetings in St. Paul. 

But this Belvidere revival was one of the sweetest 
and profoundest in my entire ministry. A friend once 
remarked to me: 

"I have been wondering if this revival is not in 
answer to your dear mother's prayers." 

I replied, "Doubtless," and so I believe. 

It certainly served as a marked tonic to me in 
many ways, and put the finishing touches on God's 
process of recovering to me "the years that the locust, 
the caterpillar and the palmer-worm had eaten," in my 
several preceding long years of a rather barren state. 
How gracious were God's dealings with me! 

At length the time came when I one day observed 
driving through the town my former acquaintance, 
Deacon D. D. Merrill, of St. Paul, Minnesota, and 
with him Deacon T. S. Tompkins, of the same church. 
The truth is, they had come to lay before me a pro- 
posal to consider a call to the pastorate of the First 

107 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Church of St. Paul. I had once, many years before, 
on a summer trip after graduating from college, 
preached a single sermon in that church. It had been 
remembered by several leading members of the congre- 
gation, during all the interval that had elapsed ; and 
they were some way moved to approach me respecting 
my availability for a pastorate among them. I was 
wholly averse to it, at first. I was deep in the unique 
campaign in the Belvidere field, which, by this time, 
awakened in the church great expectations, and many 
observant friends, East and West, were felicitating me 
on the returning evidences of a fruitful ministry. My 
wife said, "It's no use their coming here after you at 
this time. You can't leave this people right in the 
midst of this revival," and I dared not, at first, think 
of disappointing the people, many of whom felt I 
belonged to them, as one born in their midst, and 
acquainted, as no stranger could ever be, with their 
habits and types of life. Meanwhile, however, my 
health, almost unawares, had come again, and I hoped 
the bracing Minnesota climate would confirm me in 
that, and add years to my service. The appeal of the 
St. Paul people was so insistent, that I finally con- 
sented to visit them. The result was that, after some 
hesitation, I fell in with their urgent request and 
removed to Minnesota. The Belvidere people, although 
at first disappointed, were very kind and considerate, 
and did not strenuously oppose the removal. It was 
not long until I found myself in the capital city of 
Minnesota, face to face with an entirely different situa- 
tion. The new and vigorous Northwestern State had, 
for years, held a great fascination for my mind. Its 
bracing and electric air, and its fine scenery in many 
parts, studded with beautiful lakes, were congenial. The 
thronging populations that had migrated thither from 
all parts of the East and the Middle West and from 
Scandinavia gave it a rare promise, and the type of 
character was most virile. I had not a few personal 
acquaintances in the "Twin Cities." The church itself 
had suffered a great trial, owing to circumstances I 

108 



DECISIVE CHAPTERS IN A LIFE-COURSE 

need not describe, and sentiment in the community had 
been divided over issues that had arisen. My first 
great difficulty was to find some sort of common 
ground, on which the really best people in the parish 
would lay aside all differences and unite with the 
pastor in new undertakings, utterly regardless of pre- 
vious unpleasantness. After some struggle, they cor- 
dially rallied to my support. It was not long until an 
enterprise led by Deacons Merrill and Van Duzee, for 
building a chapel addition to the noble Gothic edifice, 
an imposing building, was taken up. About $25,000 
was raised, and the new chapel, with its various 
appointments for prayer-meetings, Sunday school and 
other devotional purposes, was erected. This had a 
wholesome influence to re-cement the old bonds and 
awaken new hope. A gracious ingathering of seventy- 
five or eighty new converts greatly cheered all our 
hearts. The church had been, from its inception, 
prominently identified with the two outstanding forms 
of mission work, home and foreign. The State con- 
vention idea ran high, and naturally so in view of 
the position and rare possibilities of the new State. 
The appeal it made with respect to church extension, on 
every side, with the incoming populations from the 
East, besides the uncommon type of Europeans from 
the Scandinavian states, was very constraining. Into 
all this I entered with great - heartiness, but this was 
not all. There were people in St. Paul, and Minnesota 
generally, of equal strength, who stood very strongly 
for mission work also to the ends of the earth. From 
rare familiarity with foreign mission history, from 
contact with its literature, and with their contagious 
influence to enlist new candidates for this work, they 
had become a great power throughout the entire State. 
Among these was a highly endowed woman, Mrs. 
J. H. Randall, for a full generation a commanding 
personality, always recruiting and stimulating volunteers 
for foreign service, and high in the counsels of the 
women's foreign societies. Her home was ever a 
hospice for returned missionaries from many lands; 

109 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

her zeal was quenchless, and, I fear, sometimes mis- 
understood. But she was a power, even if sometimes 
apparently one-sided. And there were men, also, of 
similar devotion to world-wide missions, although their 
applied efforts took different directions. Sometimes, 
indeed, pretty sharp issues, apparent in church and 
convention, were drawn respecting the proportions in 
which movements at home and abroad were to be 
emphasized and advocated. For myself, I felt equally 
related to both, and found ample sphere for active 
effort in stimulating both. Perhaps the most trying 
ordeal for me while I was in St. Paul was the atmos- 
phere which, during the two successive winters, was 
engendered by the "carnival" spirit, stimulated by the 
building of two great ice-palaces, with corresponding 
sports and amusements, greatly preoccupying the minds 
of the people. All this made it difficult to enforce the 
high, but real, type of spiritual interpretation and appli- 
cation of a Scriptural line of preaching which had 
characterized me following my long period of spiritual 
gloom, and which had so fruited in the Belvidere 
revival. However, I did not antagonize, but simply 
trusted and waited. 

I did the best I could to interpret and keep alive 
Christly ideals, amid the swirl of worldiness, which, at 
times, ran high. I ought to say that, even during this 
same period, there were held, at several points in the 
State, as well as in my own church, and in Minneapolis, 
a type of "Bible and Prayer Conference," which took 
mighty hold of the heart and conscience of the ministry 
throughout that entire region. The foremost and best 
ministers of the leading cities were sympathetic and 
co-operative, and, despite the high tides that ran the 
other way, there was much spiritual forward movement 
in the general denominational life of Minnesota.. 

Later, following a visit to England and attendance 
upon the great ecumenical missionary conference of 
1888, held in London, I was called to the Central 
Church of Minneapolis. Of that conference, I speak 
elsewhere. This church had been formerly served, with 

no 



DECISIVE CHAPTERS IN A LIFE-COURSE 

uncommon efficiency, by Rev. F. T. Gates. Mr. Gates 
had invited me, at a time of great nervous tension, 
succeeding a period of deep and concentrated study of 
the works and mission of Jonathan Edwards, to come 
over and help him. I went and preached for him 
nightly for three weeks. Mr. Gates continued the 
work afterwards. The result was a large addition, of, 
I think, about ninety members. Not long after Mr. 
Gates entered upon a campaign, in connection with 
Mr. Geo. A. Pillsbury's offer to endow the academy at 
Owatonna. Later, he went to Chicago to join Dr. T. 
W. Goodspeed in meeting the conditional offer of Mr. 
Rockefeller to found the new university in Chicago. 
Later still, he became secretary of the new Educational 
Society, and finally special adviser to Mr. Rockefeller's 
benevolent work, a position in which he showed marked 
efficiency. 

It was probably through a cordial remembrance of 
the service I had rendered the pastor in the Central 
Church revival, after Mr. Gates' retirement, that led 
that people to invite me to the pastorate. I had been 
but three years in St. Paul. I had become, mean- 
while, identified with all the State work, was a member 
of the Board of Managers of the Convention, a trustee 
of Pillsbury Academy, and, in every way possible, was 
trying to further the interests of Christian work in 
the State. Yet, notwithstanding all, my heart and 
imagination were ever reaching out more widely. 
Indeed, on my return from the great conference in 
London, I undertook several new lines of service in 
missionary directions. 

This Central Church was highly en rapport with 
me in my enlarging ideas. Their contributions for mis- 
sions — home and foreign — increased. They were always 
friendly to the Missionary Concert idea, a matter of 
which I always made much. The fact is, these monthly 
meetings came to have so popular and impressive a 
form that they were often frequented by members of 
outside churches. The mid-week meetings were often 
as large as the Sunday congregations. I had there a 
8 111 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

body of seven deacons of the rarest quality. Good 
judgment and harmony of feeling actuated them, and 
there was no limit to their practical co-operation. 
When I first went round the world, after resigning that 
pastorate, these deacons had taken a photographic 
group of themselves encircling their pastor, and bade 
me take it with me and exhibit it in every mission I 
visited, as a token of their sympathy with the world- 
wide cause. So deep was their sympathy with the evi- 
dent divine plan of life for me, and so ready were they 
to identify themselves, heart and soul, with it. But they 
were men of rare devotion to the interests of Christ's 
kingdom, and they were proud to contribute to it un- 
stintingly. 

For quite a period preceding, despite all the effi- 
ciency of the Boston administration of the Missionary 
Union, and the stimulating movements that had 
occurred, one after another, there was much talk 
throughout the denomination of inability to secure can- 
didates for foreign mission service. I had been for 
several years on the Board of Managers- of the Union, 
and had often publicly spoken in Boston, at Saratoga and 
throughout the West, and on their platforms at annual 
Anniversaries. I felt deeply moved to inquire what 
more I could do, as a simple individual pastor and 
member of the Board, to help the situation. I had 
been in close correspondence and fellowship with per- 
sonages like Drs. Ashmore, Jewett, Clough, and others, 
in India and China, respecting the ever-growing need. 

About this time Dr. H. Grattan Guinness, of Lon- 
don, made repeated visits, once with Mrs. Guinness, to 
America. He was full of enthusiasm for the Congo. 
He gave thrilling accounts of the China Inland and 
other missions, not to mention his own training-school 
in East London, which had then sent out about twelve 
hundred missionaries to different parts of the world. 
He came to Minnesota. He was my guest, off and on, 
for weeks, even months. His public addresses, his 
conversation and prayers, took a deep hold upon me. 
This was reinforced by the accounts of what Dr. A. J. 

112 



DECISIVE CHAPTERS IN A LIFE-COURSE 

Gordon, in Boston, was doing in the way of recruiting 
and training candidates. I also felt drawn out to do 
something in the way of establishing a similar agency. 
The Student Volunteer Movement, now grown so 
strong, was, at that time, only in its incipiency, and had 
been largely stimulated by the influence of Drs. Ash- 
more, Pierson and Guinness, with all of whom I also 
had close personal relations. I, with others, finally 
started a small recruiting and training institute in 
Minneapolis. S* 

This effort, on my part, was much misunderstood. 
I was more concerned for the recruiting than I was 
for the educating of candidates, a work for which the 
theological schools were, of course, better equipped. 
It was charged that efforts like mine gave license to 
"short-cut methods" of preparation for the ministry. 
Some of the seminary leaders were particularly dis- 
tressed. The editors of the Examiner used their 
columns to castigate Gordon and myself for such 
endeavors. 

Had the efforts which I, at least, in Minneapolis, was 
making to call attention to a truer method of arousing 
volunteers been understood, there need have been no 
hysteria on the subject, and still more candidates would 
have come forward. The principles which I empha- 
sized were these three: 

1. More concrete presentation in all our publications 
of the specific needs on particular fields. "Look on the 
fields, white to harvest." 

2. An arousement to corporate prayer in the 
churches, schools, conventions, associations, and even 
at the Anniversary meetings, for the needed candidates. 
"Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest." 

3. Less stress on the financial side of things, as 
such, instead of ever more keeping this subordinate 
matter at the front, thus transposing the emphasis, and 
so completely reversing the divine order and method. 

It was my belief that by pursuing such a course, as 
a denomination, we would revive our churches, secure 
a better volunteer product, and that the money needs 

113 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

would be better met, if put in their secondary place. 
It is true, this would call for a great advanced step 
in faith, on the part of our churches, schools and 
associated movements; but that was precisely what was 
needed. 

In default of this line of things — this distribution 
of emphasis — I confess I felt then, and still feel, grave 
concern, lest our institutions of every sort and grade 
will become devitalized, and in the end will greatly 
disappoint the churches, respecting both the numbers 
and the quality of their missionary product, for the 
best work at home or abroad, as well as result in 
default of missionary contributions. 

At all events, I soon had a school enrollment of 
over thirty embryonic missionaries, several of whom — 
Miss Mead, Mrs. Carvell, Miss Bergman and others — 
I afterwards met, actual appointees on the foreign 
fields. Several others occupy, to-day, important pas- 
torates at home, 



114 



XIV 
FIRST ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE 

IN the third year of my pastorate in St. Paul came the 
announcement of a World Missionary Conference, 
to be held in London in 1888. It made a tremendous 
appeal to me. It was the first really representative 
meeting, on such a scale, that had been called during 
the first century of the modern missionary era. The 
foremost missionaries of the world, from all lands, 
had been summoned to attend. In the early summer, 
accompanied by my wife, I sailed for England on the 
steamship "Furnessia," from Boston to Glasgow. After 
a run through the Trossachs, from Glasgow to Edin- 
burgh, I made a pilgrimage to St. Andrew's. This had 
been the seat, not only of a great university for some 
centuries, but it was also one of the historic centers 
of the ancient Culdee Church. 

The great apostolate of Columba had radiated influ- 
ence from the original central monastery, on the island 
of Iona, to this place, as well as to Melrose and other 
centers. The time of the Culdees was prior to the 
prevalence of Romanism in Scotland, and was a period 
in church history of vast moment. My interest in this 
piece of history was awakened by Stanley's ''Lectures 
on the Scottish Church," affording illuminating matter 
respecting the period. 

Arrived in St. Andrew's, the foundation of an 
ancient abbey, planted by the Culdee missionaries and 
still undisturbed by time, the university buildings, and 
the monuments erected to the memory of certain mar- 
tyrs of the earlier period, like Wishart and Patrick 
Hamilton, were very kindling to my imagination. These 
personages were very potent in affecting the move- 

115 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

ments of the ongoing church. From Edinburgh, we 
went by stages through England to London, stopping 
for a Sunday in Birmingham, my wife's birthplace, and 
visiting once more the scenes of her father's labors in 
that city. In London we were entertained in the 
"West End," at the home of Mr. J. Kynaston Studd, 
formerly a famous Cambridge man, as were also two 
of his brothers, and a great cricketer. Charles had 
already entered on mission work in China, with the 
famous Cambridge band, under the China Inland Mis- 
sion. In this home, together with L. D. Wishard and 
wife, from America, we were made absolutely at home 
during the ten days of the conference. The supposed 
hostess of this home was the daughter of Lady Beau- 
champ, sister of Lord Radstock. After the manner 
of many titled English Christians, however, she, tak- 
ing along her nursemaid and infant, had gone to a 
remote village, to conduct a mission among factory 
girls. This was rather a new form of things to us, 
but we soon discovered, to our great admiration, how 
common this was among a multitude of even titled 
people in the Church of England, who had arrived at 
a stage in their religious thought and habit wherein 
they cared far more for getting spiritual work done 
than they did for ecclesiastical or social conventions. 
Morning after morning we found our mail laden with 
exquisitely prepared invitations, from Lord this and 
Lady that, and from societies almost without number, 
to come to "early prayers," "missionary breakfasts," 
"Bible readings," etc. This was a new phase of 
Christian activity in the great world metropolis, not 
common in the New World. It was a marked revela- 
tion to us, of how the powers of a new vitality — really 
reactionary from the ecclesiastical stiffness and for- 
malism of state churches in Europe, and of return to 
the devotional form of the "upper chamber" — develop 
new impetus. 

The conference meetings themselves were held in 
old Exeter Hall, now displaced by the crowding com- 
mercial life of London. Together with Secretary Mur- 

116 



FIRST ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE 

dock, Dr. and Mrs. A. J. Gordon, and a few others, 
I had been appointed as a delegate. This was my 
second visit to England, and I had already come into 
heart touch with men like Spurgeon, Maclaren and 
the officials of our Baptist Missionary Society, at 19 
Furnival Street. But I was then, and later, brought 
into a broader acquaintance with many a personage 
outside the circles previously familiar to me. Among 
these were several titled people — Lord Radstock and 
his son Granville Waldegrave, Lord Kinnaird, Lady 
Beauchamp, Lord Aberdeen and the Countess, Lord 
Pontypridd of Wales and the Countess of Tankerville. 
Among the most impressive speakers from our side 
of the Atlantic were Drs. Murdock, Gordon, John Hall, 
Pierson, Noble, Ellenwood, and Dr. Sutherland, of 
Canada, who, in addition to their deep missionary 
spirit, greatly impressed the British public by their 
commanding style of public address, which, of course, 
greatly delighted us Americans. The Earl of Aber- 
deen was the honorary chairman of the conference. 
The Countess also sat beside him as he presided. Lord 
Aberdeen, although so prominent in political matters, 
one of Gladstone's chief lieutenants in the Government, 
and, afterwards, the most highly respected Government 
functionary in Ireland, was, none the less, a whole- 
hearted Christian and philanthropist. Among the 
very interesting incidents connected with the con- 
ference was the invitation of these worthies to their 
country estate at Dollis Hill, a few miles out of 
London. To this garden party we were all borne, 
one thousand or more, on a special train, and had an 
afternoon of phenomenal interest. In the receiving- 
line with the Count and Countess were Mr. and Mrs. 
Gladstone, Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Parker and Henry 
Drummond, at that time the most fascinating person- 
age on the platform in all Great Britain, and, perhaps, 
in the Christian world. We were all disappointed not 
to have a speech from Gladstone, though we were 
permitted to shake his hand. The Emperor Frederick 
of Germany, and son-in-law of Her Majesty, Queen 

117 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Victoria, lay dead in Berlin. For state reasons, Glad- 
stone's lips were sealed for a period, although, later, I 
was permitted to hear his memorial address in the 
House of Commons, on this same beloved and revered 
emperor. Alas! how altered the situation at this writ- 
ing, as between the two realms of Germany and 
England and their great capitals. 

As the conference progressed, there were also sim- 
ilar gatherings, at Harley House, in East London, the 
site of the East London Missionary Training Institute, 
conducted by Dr. and Mrs. Henry Grattan Guinness ; at 
Doric Lodge School for Women, and at other prominent 
centers. I recall with special interest a Sunday after- 
noon meeting in the private theatrical hall in the grand 
palace of the Duke of Westminster, at which Drum- 
mond gave us one of his matchless sermons on "We 
all with face unveiled, beholding as in a glass the 
glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image 
from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." 
The fragrance of Drummond's influence in the univer- 
sities of Scotland and England was phenomenal. It 
had rapidly grown ever since Moody first impressed 
him into work among the students in his own greatest 
campaign in Britain. Drummond had an immense 
hold on the public mind and imagination. His was a 
figure which, once to have seen, faultlessly dressed, 
princely in bearing and his heart throbing to the world's 
need, was never to forget. 

Succeeding the general conference, there came on, 
almost at once, the annual gathering of the long-famous 
Mildmay Conferences. Here we saw, I might say, 
segregated, typical forms of the more intense pietistic 
life of England, engaged in many lines of mission work 
throughout the world. Some of those who figured 
prominently in addresses were Dr. Guinness, Rev. F. B. 
Meyer, then in the thirties of his life and just rising 
like a new prophet in the realm, and who was heard 
with exceptional interest, as were also Drs. A. J. 
Gordon and A. T. Pierson. Here Hudson Taylor and 
many China Inland missionaries also appeared. The 

118 



FIRST ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE 

Rev. John Wilkinson, practical director of the most 
effective form of modern work for the Jew that has 
yet appeared and a speaker of rare impressiveness, was 
in the foreground. This particular conference occurred 
shortly after the conversion on the Mount of Olives 
of the celebrated Rabinowitz, who afterwards lived and 
wrought in Bessarabia, South Russia. There were 
several representatives from this section of Russia, 
who gave graphic accounts of the movements of the 
Jews there towards Christianity. There were also 
present prominent men sent from Berlin and other 
parts of Germany, whose interest in this work had 
long been fostered by the celebrated Dr. Friedrich 
Delitzsch. Delitzsch, himself of Jewish origin, was, 
throughout his life, ever enlisting the interest of stu- 
dents to love, pray and work for the "remnant" in 
Israel, wheresoever on earth they were found. Accord- 
ingly, the accent of Mildmay, that year, was very 
strong upon this movement. Copies of Wilkinson's 
book, "Israel My Glory," were freely distributed to 
delegates. It was in connection with Mildmay that the 
remarkable spiritual personality of Frances Ridley 
Havergal was developed. Her life and hymns have 
deeply impressed the church, and will permanently live. 

One of our finest outings was a visit for an after- 
noon to Spurgeon's great Stockwell Orphanage. It was 
the celebration of the founder's birthday. Ten thousand 
people were present. All sorts of bazaars, illustrating 
things Oriental and colonial, were displayed for the 
entertainment of the orphans and the guests. Spurgeon 
himself was presiding in a central hall, where his boy 
bell-ringers were the attraction. Drs. Pierson and F. M. 
Ellis went over in my company. We, of course, wished 
to meet Spurgeon, but there was a surging crowd all 
about the entrance and we were about to despair of 
getting near him. Just then Deacon Charlesworth 
appeared at one of the exits of the building. Recog- 
nizing him, I called out: "Charlesworth, there are 
several Americans here who want to get in." 

Charlesworth exclaimed: "Make way there, please, 

119 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 



for our American guests." The crowd opened and we 
triumphantly passed through. We were escorted to the 
platform and Spurgeon arose to greet us. On meeting 
me he astonished me by remarking, "How much better 
you are looking than when I saw you here six years 
ago, when you were so ill!" 

Such was his acuteness of memory and sympathy. 
I then presented to him Dr. Pierson, who came in 
behind me. This meeting vis a vis with the great 
preacher led to later intimate relations and to a pro- 
longed period of preaching in Metropolitan Tabernacle 
after Spurgeon's decease, on the part of Dr. Pierson, 
with which all are familiar. 

From London several of us went to Paris, by 
invitation of Dr. McAll, Rev. Reuben Saillens, Theo- 
dore Monod and other evangelical workers in that 
land. Accordingly, my wife and I, in company with 
Drs. Murdock, Pierson, Gordon and others, were for 
several days in the French capital. We attended 
McAll meetings in the several "salles," in which con- 
vocations assembled. We each had our turn in 
addresses. The chief impression made upon my mind 
through this Paris visitation and experience was of the 
unconquerable power of a spiritual gospel, if it is only 
spoken through the lips of messengers who, like 
McAll, are themselves the incarnation of their mes- 
sage. It may be remembered that Mr. McAll's first 
sense of obligation to begin work in Paris arose from 
an incident occurring shortly after the great disorders 
ensuing upon the capture of Paris in 1871 and the 
uprising of the commune. Mr. McAll, having casually 
met some one on the street in a state of frenzied despair, 
attempted to speak of the power of God's love to 
comfort, under whatever trials or distresses. 

He was met by the reply: "We in France are tired 
of empty formalism and meaningless religious phrases, 
but if you know of any one who will talk to us about 
the realities of the Christian religion, I will find you 
thousands who will listen to you." 

McAll could not resist the appeal. He, with his 
120 



FIRST ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE 

wife, began at once a movement in Paris that has 
continued until this day. 

It may be readily surmised that, in the light of this 
retrospect, when I found myself on shipboard, headed 
for New York and the home land, I was, in thought, 
imagination and heart, living in a new world. That 
which at earlier stages had been romance and senti- 
ment now began to take form in reality. I had gained 
from contact with these foreign workers a new con- 
ception of the responsibilities and possibilities of the 
individual, quite irrespective of corporate relations to 
a denomination. In the American conception, it is 
too often a merely perfunctory matter. I came home 
with a new sense of my individual accountability, and 
of the possibility of impressing others with a deeper 
sense of responsibility for world mission conditions. 

On the return, after spending a few days among 
friends and parishioners in my former charge in 
St. Paul, I went immediately to the Central Church 
in Minneapolis, whose call I had accepted during my 
absence. 

The people were so hearty and open-minded, so ready 
to conform to my presentations of truth, and the city 
itself was in many features so attractive, that I entered 
upon my work with great exhilaration and delight. For 
weeks I occupied my Sunday evenings with accounts of 
my Old World experiences, and the vital spiritual 
lessons which it had borne in upon me. I also found 
my method of expository preaching, into which I had 
been gradually led, was more than congenial to my 
constituents. The truth is, I was through with mere 
theorizing, with mere orations or essays; I felt with 
each service, whether on Sabbath or in mid-week, that 
I was holding what the surgeons call a "clinic." I 
began to deal with vital processes, and I began to lead 
my parishioners into new habits of thought involving 
more vital dealings with those they could influence for 
Christ. The result was that during the two years of 
my settlement in Minneapolis our church came to a 
state of continued revival, with many additions. 

121 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

In a course of special lectures on "Phases of 
Religion in the Old World," I gave four on historic 
Romanism. They were analytical rather than contro- 
versial. They attracted some attention in the Twin 
Cities; so much so in St. Paul that Archbishop Ireland 
felt called upon to attack me in a cathedral discourse, 
published in the columns of the Pioneer Press. In the 
usual fashion, I was charged with "falsifying history." 
After some reflection, I felt it important to write the 
archbishop an open letter, which was published in the 
same paper, giving him a bill of particulars respecting 
some historical matters, and presenting a list of ques- 
tions for him to answer. The answer, however, never 
came, although eagerly looked for by many. 

This was my one experience, in the pulpit, in the 
line of disputation on matters of ecclesiastical contro- 
versy, and it filled my church with curiosity-mongers, 
particularly with Orangemen. But, believing it to be 
profitless, I did not pursue it. 

I have already referred to the marked character of 
our monthly missionary concerts, which began to take 
so world-wide a turn. The local interest also, respect- 
ing mission work in Minnesota itself, took on a new 
reality. People from adjoining towns were always 
dropping into our meetings, and the impulses acquired 
were carried over the State. Some of my best workers, 
led by our devoted deacon, Jason Hidden, began to visit 
communities where churches had been closed for several 
successive years, and in two instances at least, namely, in 
Monticello and Farmington, these churches were revived 
and started on a new course, with converts of uncom- 
mon influence and standing won in the community, so 
that erelong both of these churches mentioned opened 
their houses and called pastors. One of them put in 
a new baptistery, the other bought a new church property 
outright, and all this without one dollar of outlay 
from our State Convention treasury. These achieve- 
ments were regarded as little short of miraculous on 
the part of that modest Central Church and its more 
modest, but devoted, layman who engineered it all. 

122 



FIRST ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE 

While in these Minnesota pastorates I had cordial 
fellowship with such brethren as Drs. H. C. Woods, 
Win. T. Chase, Revs. F. T. Gates, T. G. Field, Frank 
Peterson, James Sunderland, "Uncle Boston" Smith, 
D. D. MacLaurin, and other loyal souls, who have lent 
inspirations to my life. 

There were also great deacons in those cities to 
uphold our hands, and there were generous givers, also, 
too numerous to mention. These constituted a staff 
of immense power amid the throbbing life of the new 
Northwest. 



123 



IN A SECRETARIAL SPHERE 



125 



XV 
A NEW FUNCTION 

IN May, 1890, the Baptist Anniversaries met in 
Chicago. Having been accustomed for some years 
to attend these meetings, I made it a point to be 
present. For five years I had held important pastorates 
in Minnesota: three years in the First Church, St. 
Paul, and two years in the Central Church, Minneapolis. 
Having been also for quite a period a member of the 
Board of Managers of the Missionary Union, I was far 
from listless when the difficulty of securing candidates 
for missionary service abroad was widely announced. 
In view of this need I felt constrained to make use of 
my liberty, in the free air of Minnesota, to take a hand 
at recruiting possible candidates. Under the stimulation 
incident to a prolonged visitation in our region of 
Dr. H. Grattan Guinness, of London, and of the wide- 
spread zeal of the rising Student Volunteer Movement, 
I had felt moved to establish a Missionary Institute in 
Minneapolis, referred to in an earlier chapter. I was 
aware that the legitimacy, even of this kind of work, 
was likely to be challenged, formally or informally, at 
the Chicago meetings, although I was never aware 
that any form of Baptist organization was warranted 
in expressing such a challenge. I knew I had a host 
of sympathizers with the general aim to increase the 
emphasis in all our schools of the claims of Foreign 
Missions on students. 

The course of studies that I had outlined was Bib- 
lical, experiential and vital; indeed, it had for one of 
its chief aims to save the student from secularizing, 
worldly and non-spiritual standards so undermining to 
piety in many colleges. 

9 127 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

At the Chicago meetings I found the atmosphere 
rather electric and quizzical on the subject, while some 
were highly sympathetic. The meetings were largely at- 
tended. Pres. George W. Northrup was in the chair of 
the Missionary Union. It seems also that, all unknown 
to me, beforehand a letter, signed by several mission- 
aries of our Telugu field, had been sent to this Anni- 
versary with request that it be read in open meeting, 
and that I should be asked to speak on the question 
raised relative to the supply of missionaries. Mean- 
while, Deacon Chipman, of Boston, long a leading 
member of the Executive Committee of the Missionary 
Union, had hinted to me that I was likely to be elected 
as a new secretary of the Union at the meeting of the 
Board on the Monday following, and he admonished me 
not to decline. 

When the communication from the Telugu mission 
came up for reading on Saturday afternoon, I was 
called out, and responded briefly respecting the signifi- 
cance of the appeal from India, and carried the 
sympathies of the meeting with me. On Saturday 
night Brother B. F. Jacobs and others of the Prudential 
Committee had projected an overflow meeting to be 
held in an adjoining church. Although the principal 
assembly itself was packed to the doors, yet the over- 
flow meeting also filled the large Centenary M. E. 
Church. Drs. A. J. Gordon, Russell H. Conwell, Thos. 
K. Dixon and I were put up to speak. The headlines 
in the papers next morning sensationally reported the 
meeting. The whole drift of this meeting was a plea 
for larger things mission-wise for our denomination, 
and I was thrown back afresh upon God and sought 
isolation as far as possible. On Sunday morning I 
took a car and went out to the site of the old university, 
where the Lord had appeared to me in signal form in 
previous years. I crept into a clump of lilac-bushes, 
still standing on a portion of the grounds, and had a 
season of prayer alone with the Lord. I then went 
to hear Dr. Gunsaulus preach in the Plymouth Church, 
and heard a remarkable sermon, which seemed just 

128 



A NEW FUNCTION 



suited to my need. The afternoon of Sunday was set 
apart for a consecration service in connection with the 
outgoing company of perhaps a half-dozen candidates 
under appointment. At the conclusion of the addresses, 
President Northrup called on me to offer the prayer 
which usually followed such addresses. Coming for- 
ward from my seat in the side gallery, I remarked: 

"If I could first speak a few words, I think I could 
pray with more confidence." 

The privilege was granted and I proceeded. I 
begged that the denomination rouse itself to more 
advanced methods for securing more such candidates, 
in view of so overwhelming demands as our needy 
fields, and especially the Telugu field, pleaded for. 
I urged that mere occasional announcements through 
the denominational press were wholly inadequate; that 
meetings in representative places over the country, in 
which corporate prayer could be poured out to the Lord 
of the harvest, were essential ; and I was rash enough 
to say that if no one else would undertake such a cam- 
paign, I believed my own devoted church would release 
me for a few weeks to personally lead in such a move- 
ment. I then broke forth in prayer. The whole meet- 
ing seemed to be with me, and numbers of individuals 
so expressed themselves to me afterwards. 

At the Board meeting on Monday Dr. L. C. Barnes 
was chosen to the Foreign secretaryship, and I to the 
Home secretaryship, of the Union. My first thought 
was of my Minneapolis church. They were counting 
on me for a long and fruitful pastorate. This call 
meant that I must leave them soon and finally. It 
involved much for my family also. There was, how- 
ever, linked to the call, a formal proposal on the part of 
the Board that we new secretaries should be dispatched 
before the coming autumn on a round-the-world tour, 
to visit the several missions of the Union. Friends on 
every side, before the meeting adjourned, said to us 
appointees: "This matter is of the Lord's doing, and 
must not be refused." Telegrams went here and there 
to my family, and to prominent members of my church, 

129 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

so by the time I had reached home, and met my 
family and the deacons of my church, I felt assured, 
trying as it was to think of severing my connections 
with that loved people, that it was inevitable. A tele- 
gram reached me from my old friend, Dr. Guinness, 
from San Francisco, saying, "By all means, accept the 
call." However, I did not at first accept. I must first 
go to Boston for an extended consultation with Dr. 
Murdock and the Executive Committee, and also with 
my newly appointed colleague, Dr. Barnes, then pastor 
at Newton Centre. I went over the ground with these 
brethren, day after day, in much detail. To my great 
disappointment, Dr. Barnes felt constrained to decline 
the call, and so, although Dr. Murdock, who had 
occupied the office with distinction for full thirty years, 
wished to lay down his burdens, he was compelled to 
retain charge of the foreign department for another 
year, even two years. He was, however, very friendly 
and sympathetic with my election, and took great 
interest in my proposed visit to the missions, and was, 
to the very end of his life, cordial and helpful to my 
new line of duties, and fraternal in the highest degree. 
I returned to Minneapolis and shortly resigned, and 
made preparations for the future Eastern tour. Early 
in the following August I started on my long journey, 
via San Francisco and the Pacific to the Orient. 

Radical as the change was, I have never doubted the 
call was from the Lord, nor regretted my decision. I 
had long cherished the hope that, even as an individual, 
I might some day be permitted to visit the missionaries 
in the midst of their work, to see heathenism face to 
face, to get my own first-hand impressions respecting 
its character, and to see the triumphs of Christian 
grace in the character of the native church. I was 
deeply attached to many missionaries, some of them 
old schoolmates, and a full dozen of them former 
parishioners, who had opened their hearts to me in the 
days when they were pondering the Lord's call. I was 
also confident that, with some aptitude for picturesque 
description of scenes and situations observed in foreign 

130 



A NEW FUNCTION 



lands, I could reproduce to imagination and faith at 
least, the situations impressed on my own soul, and cause 
others to see and feel their significance. 

The visions caught as I visited, in rotation, land 
after land, I reserve for later chapters, avoiding repeti- 
tion as far as possible of such events and situations as 
I described years ago in my book, ''In Brightest Asia." 



131 



XVI 

OFF TO THE MISSION FIELDS 

THE secretarial Deputation to Asia was not for of- 
ficial investigation, much less for critical inquiry: 
it was rather for friendly visitation to gain first- 
hand vision of the situation, needs and promise of the 
fields, and withal to acquire fresh inspirations. I was 
expected, on my return, to advocate widely the cause 
at home. Accordingly, an eager interest on the part of 
the missionaries awaited my coming. 

I had long felt that I could never ask a candidate 
to go to a mission land to which I myself was unwilling 
to go if God called me. In short, I had to undergo in 
my own soul, in principle, all that any missionary might 
incur in the way of risk, if I were to be a true mission- 
ary helper. 

From my student days I had possessed an ever- 
growing desire to see distant mission lands. Former 
classmates and friends had long been working in those 
regions. Besides, the growing conviction of the power 
of the gospel to work its miracles of transformation on 
heathen peoples, as well as among those of the home 
land, created in me a desire to see these products. But 
I had been habituated for twenty-one years to the 
pastoral relation, and it was no trifle to sever that 
bond. 

The countries traversed in order were Japan, China, 
Malaysia, Burma, Assam and India, briefly touching 
Egypt, Palestine, Italy, France and England. About two 
hundred of our own missionaries and many of other 
boards were visited. 

It was a never-to-be-forgotten experience, and it 
afforded me a great amount of local coloring for the 

132 



OFF TO THE MISSION FIELDS 

description of missionary lands and scenes of inesti- 
mable worth. 

People generally, in home lands, are always eager to 
hear descriptions of distant lands by first-hand observers. 
One, therefore, who can paint these scenes to the im- 
agination, will never want for hearers. 

For twenty-five years, and in eight transcontinental 
tours from Boston to Los Angeles, and repeatedly in 
Canada and in the Southern States to Florida, I have 
found the people ever eager for descriptions and con- 
crete representations of my contact with mission lands 
and peoples, and it has been a living joy to share these 
scenes with them. 

Soon after my return from this round-the-world tour 
I was invited by the Southern Baptist Convention to ad- 
dress them in Atlanta, and during the last eight years I 
have been very warmly received in principal institutions 
through Texas, Arkansas, large parts of the South and 
in Canada. 

Two missionaries under appointment, namely, Miss 
Mead, of Minnesota, and Miss Blunt, of Kansas City, 
were to journey with me. An old fellow-townsman and 
friend of my youth, Rev. H. B. Waterman, volunteered 
his companionship at individual expense. Brother Ernest 
Gordon, son of Dr. A. J. Gordon, of Boston, also joined 
us at San Francisco. 

After a Sunday spent with our First Church in Den- 
ver, in which several services in our honor were held, we 
started on our mountain journey, over the old Marshall 
Pas route, rising several thousands of feet in height. 
Sublime was the view as we reached the summit on 
the continental watershed, between two lofty horns, or 
peaks — Mount Ouray and Mount Sniffel. The train 
halted, and we all rushed out for observations. The out- 
look extended westward toward the Pacific one hundred 
miles or so. We made a stop at Salt Lake City, and 
attended the service at the big Tabernacle on Sunday 
afternoon, and heard a characteristic Mormon sermon 
and also the great organ. The day following, we 
crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains, following the 

133 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

picturesque course of the Truckee River. Lumbering- 
camps began to appear, and then, in the glowing after- 
noon, as we passed over the divide to the California 
side, we were zigzagging about through the one-time 
famous gold diggings, marked by numerous disused 
water flumes and ditches. Vast yellow surfaces on the 
mountain-side showed where the hydraulic processes had 
washed down parts of even the everlasting hills. 

On arrival in San Francisco, the good Dr. J. B. 
Hartwell, who had served as a missionary for seventeen 
years in China, and was now in charge of Chinese 
mission work in San Francisco, met us and quartered 
us at the old Occidental Hotel, under the management 
of the most genial host, Major Gordon. On the next 
day delegations representing the Ministers' Meeting and 
the Woman's Society of this coast called upon us, 
proffering service of every kind, leading up to a grand 
send-off, on the part of all the Baptist churches, when 
the time for sailing should come. Rev. J. Q. A. 
Henry, D.D., was then pastor of the First Church, and 
he, with many others, did everything possible to show 
us in what affection the Baptists of the coast hold the 
great cause of Foreign Missions. A throng of San 
Francisco friends were on the wharf. They filled our 
staterooms with flowers and fruits. About a dozen 
missionaries of various societies were on board. Fifty 
other saloon passengers and numberless Chinese com- 
posed the ship's company. 

"Haul in the gang-plank!" was heard from the 
bridge, announcing the moment when we were to say 
good-by to native land. Farewell songs were sung, 
and many an eye was moistened as we swung out into 
the stream and headed for the Golden Gate, opening 
out into the broad Pacific. I have since had three other 
experiences of passing out or in through that gateway, 
but none that were quite so searching and impressive 
as this first one. It involved on my part a profound 
experience of the risks to person and health, of a new 
crisis affecting everything dearest in earthly life. God 
only knew whether we should ever again meet the dear 

134 



OFF TO THE MISSION FIELDS 

ones nested in the little plain parsonage at Minneapolis. 
From this time on, we were to see and have fellowship 
with the missionaries, sharing their risks, isolation and 
trials. But we endeavored to meet it bravely, and, with 
a new surrender of our all to the living Christ, our 
prow was set toward the Orient. 

From that moment until now I have felt, and still 
realize, that I was in all essentials a foreign missionary 
— not a mere globe-trotter, out to see sights, nor to be, 
as I once heard a competent foreign missionary describe 
some reputed missionaries who never get very deeply 
into their work, as "merely Americans residing abroad 
at the expense of a missionary society." I knew that I 
was classed with that so-called " fanatical cult," going 
out to "meddle" with the religion and institutions of 
Asiatics. Accordingly, I did not feel called to obtrude my 
religion on the ship's company, from the captain and 
purser down. Indeed, instead of proposing a religious 
service on Sunday to the captain, I thought it wiser to 
wait until I was asked, as I indeed was, and by the cap- 
tain himself, by the time the second Sunday arrived, to 
conduct a religious service in my own way. 

The moment I set foot in Japan I felt peculiar 
responsibility for the impression my very personal 
bearing would make. The fact that I was a foreigner, 
I knew, invited scrutiny of everything about me. If I 
had had a questionable habit, I should have felt it 
should never be indulged, especially in sight of a pagan, 
or even of the weak Christians. The very jinriksha men 
knew instinctively the sort of a being I was. And 
should I do an inconsistent thing, it would be charged 
up against both my country and my religion. And I 
soon found many an opportunity to enter into conver- 
sation respecting religion and the deepest things in 
every land visited, and among many whose language 
I could not speak. 



135 



XVII 
IN THE SUNRISE KINGDOM 

ON Wednesday morning, September 10, after a sail 
of seventeen days, there arose a shout from some 
of our fellow -passengers : 

"Oh, there is Fujiyama! I have caught the first 
view of Fujiyama!" 

Peering through a porthole, I saw, many miles away, 
the conically shaped mount, white at the top, the 
Hermon of the empire, twelve thousand feet high. It 
is sixty miles distant and yet in full view. A large 
coast town with low, tiled roofs soon appears. 

We are now passing the little village of Uraga, at 
which Commodore Perry first landed when about to 
negotiate his treaty with Japan. Our engines stop, 
and we are soon making fast to the steamer buoy. 
Several launches are approaching. Among them is one 
from the United States flagship "Omaha," which lies 
here, and Lieutenant — now Rear Admiral — Murdock 
steps on board. I recognize him from his resemblance 
to his revered father. A few minutes later and three 
of our Yokohama missionaries, Brothers Dearing, Har- 
rington and Hamblen, approach with a steam launch to 
take us off. Our baggage through the customs, we 
each take a jinriksha and our "kurumen" trot us off 
in a procession through the town and up the hill to the 
"Foreign Concession," the picturesque "Bluff" embow- 
ered in trees and adorned with the loveliest of flowers. 
We are soon lodged in Miss Britton's comfortable 
missionary boarding-house. How strange, quaint and 
interesting everything about us is ! As if we had landed 
on a new planet! A scene of bewildering beauty 
spreads itself on the descending terraces on every side. 

136 



IN THE SUNRISE KINGDOM 

On these are large and small gardens, cultivated to the 
highest pitch. Residences, half European, half Japanese, 
relieve, in part, the strangeness. It is like enchanted 
ground. But we are in a land of idols. What is that 
deep booming repeated every few moments, that rolls 
out and echoes on many sides? It is the sounding of 
the "tom-toms/' or the huge temple gongs, by super- 
stitious priests, to keep off the ghosts of the cholera 
plague just now devastating Japan and east China. It 
was said that twenty thousand victims died during the 
period of about two months that we were passing 
through these two lands. The disease, however, was 
almost wholly confined to natives, and resulted from 
eating tainted food, mostly in the form of dried fish. 

Japan was then, and still is, a land of heathen 
temples. Probably not less than seventy-five thousand 
of these — Buddhist alone — are still in use, and as we 
visited them we soon began to see the rank superstition 
that fills the minds of the people. In the temple of 
Asakasu in Tokyo alone, there are more than ten 
thousand visitors daily. We saw mothers with infants 
in arms, crying from inflamed gums, result of the 
teething process, teaching the little innocents to imitate 
the mother in rubbing the cheek of a wooden idol, and 
then the corresponding' place on its own face, implying 
that thus the pain might be relieved. There were deep 
grooves in the cheeks of the image thus used. In one 
of the great new temples of the Shin Shiu sect of 
Buddhists in Kyoto, built at a cost of a half-million 
dollars or more, we saw later the three great coils of 
cable braided from the hair of devout women, which 
had been consecrated to the uses of erecting the temple. 
They lay in several masses the size of large hogs- 
heads, and weighed several thousand pounds. 

For beauties of natural mountain scenery, with 
dashing streams and numerous waterfalls, and for the 
artistic products and quality of its skillful and cun- 
ning crafts, all most exquisitely wrought, the country 
can not be surpassed. The impressive beauty of 
Nikko, often called their Westminster Abbey, with 

137 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

its manifold temples on different levels, rising terrace 
above terrace, and wonderfully lacquered in various 
colors, are, in their way, impressive. A long avenue of 
cryptomeria trees, one of the historic and noteworthy 
approaches to these sacred shrines, we traversed in 
"rikshas" for twenty-seven miles. The trees are gigan- 
tic. The roadway between in many places had been 
washed down from four to six feet below the original 
grade, and in places rivulets from the mountains on 
each side the way rendered the atmosphere most cool 
and refreshing. The symmetrical, sacred mountain 
Nantaisan, with the beautiful lake Chiu Senji at its foot, 
both approached by a bridlepath up the dashing Daiya- 
gawa stream, and Yumoto beyond, constitute a series of 
charming pictures. The scenery in and about Sendai, 
also, which I visited later, with its bewitching archi- 
pelagoes of islands, not only there, but everywhere 
about the coasts, brings wonderful charm to the visitor. 

The Japan Inland Sea, studded with hundreds of 
islands rising like little, picturesque mountains, often to 
a considerable height, and frequently terraced for the 
growing of rice, wheat and other grains, affords views 
never to be forgotten. The uncommon skill in land- 
scape gardening, and of rendering fertile every valley 
and bit of lowland, marks the Jap as a master of his 
art. Indeed, the whole land is as charming as a 
museum, with unique, natural and historic features. 

While acknowledging the wonderful endowments 
and cleverness of some of Japan's people, and her many 
outstanding men of the recent past, such as Neesima, 
Bishop Honda, Counts Ito, Okuma, the late Premier; 
her numerous army and navy commanders of recent 
wars, such as Nogi, Kuroki, Oyama and Togo, besides 
many literary and university men, of which President 
Harada, Professor Nitobe and others are examples, I 
yet believe that the romancing of some writers of the 
Lafcadio Hearn type has been excessive. The Japanese 
are, and have been for centuries, unquestionably a 
nation of tenacious fighters. They go into battle with 
the desperation of the fatalist, with the abandon of a 

138 



IN THE SUNRISE KINGDOM 

Mohammedan, and for similar reasons: their heaven 
(and one of a material sort) depends on it. Their form 
of patriotism is largely their religion. They have from 
earliest times — since Jimmo Tenno, their first Mikado, 
said to have sprung from heaven to earth by miracle, 
full armed for command and authority — been Mikado 
worshipers. And here is one of their serious handicaps. 
That mythical unreality is directly in the way of a true 
Theism. So far as it prevails, there is no ground for 
either philosophy or theology. Revelation and miracle 
and every fundamental of the Christian religion are 
precluded in the cult of the Emperor worship. The 
effect of this single error upon the mentality, conscience 
and character of the people has been well-nigh fatal. 
Philosophically, they have no room for personality, 
either in God or man. They are Pantheists, certainly 
naturalists, and, in the case of most of their public 
men, practical atheists. Their patriotism is not ground- 
ed, as Christian patriotism is, in the very being of God, 
the Author of all governments, and in man's relation to 
him as personal. There is a cheap estimate placed 
upon the sanctity of human life. Suicide and infanti- 
cide are every-day occurrences. One of the customs 
attaching to the old and false romantic system, which 
in certain circumstances called upon the retainers of the 
lord or daimio to commit hara-kiri, has done much to 
foster a morbid view of the heroic. All this grows 
out of the lack of a proper sense of the soul's immor- 
tality. Indeed, the custom of hara-kiri is a logical 
part of their morbid notion of patriotism and human 
honor. The sense of proportion between this life and 
the next is thus radically destroyed, and the notion of 
Deity and responsibility to Him is quite ignored. All 
this tends to a wretched pessimism, which is enhanced 
by forms of Buddhistic teaching. It is true that there 
prevails in Japan one of the higher forms of Buddhism, 
represented by the Shin Shiu sect. Their highest 
deity is Kwan Yin, the goddess of mercy. This form 
of Buddhism has a most interesting history. It is 
traceable back to China, and to a very early century. 

139 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

It is believed by some students of the subject to have 
originated in Bible lands, and as far back as the begin- 
ning of the Christian era. It has in it so close a 
resemblance to facts in the life and being of Christ 
that some have thought it was of really Christian origin, 
but for reasons modified. It has even a doctrine of 
justification by faith apart from works. It has also had 
remarkable Luther-like reformers from time to time, who 
have sought to recover it from certain abuses. For 
further light on this subject, see an article by me in my 
"In Brightest Asia," Chapter IV. It is also true that 
present-day Buddhism, on the part of some of its 
leaders influenced by our Christian propagandism, has 
begun to read Christianity into its own system, and on 
occasions it is found preaching the doctrines of Jesus. 
Nevertheless, it is not too much to say that the Bud- 
dhism of Japan, as a whole, has been a great blight, 
and rendered it far more difficult, than among peoples 
purely Animistic, to introduce the gospel. There has 
been little, even in forms of Bushido sentiment, now 
decidedly waning, to save the people from dreadful 
conditions of joylessness and gross immoralities. 

But, on the other hand, Japan has always appeared to 
me to have within it and its people great incitement to 
Christian effort. First of all, they are a cleanly people ; 
exceptionally so among Orientals. The members of the 
ordinary Japanese family are put through a well-nigh 
scalding hot bath every night, which goes far to pre- 
pare the way for things decent the coming day. The 
people are also, as I have intimated, highly aesthetic, 
artistic and polite ; and while a coarse-minded type of 
missionary among them would be regarded as an offense 
to their sensibilities, yet, for men and women of 
sufficient aesthetic temperament, and endowed with the 
gifts of politeness and tactful personal approach, they 
hold a large promise. Their zeal for education is 
something quite phenomenal, and the progress made in 
their universal system of public education has relatively 
surpassed everything in recent times ; and while, for 
the time being, this education has departed from the 

140 



IN THE SUNRISE KINGDOM 

standards introduced by the early missionaries, Verbeck, 
Brown and Hepburn, and has tended towards German 
rationalism and agnosticism, it affords, let us hope, 
after all, a promise for something permanent and solid 
in the time to come. 

That Japan, also, by its geographical position, its 
linguistic connection with China and its great aggres- 
siveness in everything modern, occupies a position of 
strategic importance in the Far East, is beyond doubt; 
its political, industrial and military ability largely to 
dominate China has of late been thought to constitute 
a menace to that land and even to India; and it cer- 
tainly may be a real peril in the near future, unless 
China, at least, wakes up and turns to seek such guidance 
as is available to it from higher sources. But as goes 
Japan religiously and educationally, so will go at least 
Korea, China, Formosa and the Philippine Islands. 
Another thing has always impressed me, not only as 
a result of my three visits to Japan, but from contact 
with her people on occasions in America and Europe, 
and that is the great capacity of the Japanese for 
friendliness. They seem uncommonly open-hearted and 
susceptible — the very kind of material on which human 
tact and a brotherly feeling seem to take easy effect. 

With respect to missionary work in Japan, the 
Congregational, Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopal and 
Dutch Reformed Church missions among Protestants 
have done conspicuously efficient work. I wish as 
much could be said in behalf of American Baptists. 
No more devoted workers could a country have had 
than Nathan Brown, C. H. Carpenter, J. L. Dearing, 
Mrs. Brand, Miss Kidder, A. A. Bennet, and others 
yet living, gifted and earnest souls, whom I need not 
name. But our entrance on the work in that land was 
late. True, we were long before preoccupied almost 
to the limit of our resources in the older work in other 
lands, but we have never had a settled, persistent and 
uniform policy, such as it would seem the missionaries 
and officials at home might have reached. But, worse 
than all, our inadequate ideas respecting education as 

141 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

the handmaid of evangelization, and the lack of finan- 
cial support on the part of Baptist laymen, have, 
unfortunately, been a great handicap. Had we planned 
a generation ago to put a million dollars, more or less, 
by installments into a good college, with a theological 
seminary attached, how different the situation now 
would be. Business men visiting Japan at this time 
are often mortified at our backward place, but the 
ample funds of some of these same visitors have never 
been forthcoming to rescue us from discredit. The 
denomination, as a whole, has never measured up to 
the situation and promise of things in Japan. 

A notable thing has been done in Tokyo in the 
building and, recently, in the rebuilding of the Central 
Tabernacle. The Woman's Society in Japan has made 
a worthy record. There are five creditable girls' 
schools in Tokyo, Yokohama, Himeiji, Osaka and 
Sendai. The Inland Sea work, projected by Mr. Robert 
Allan, of Glasgow, was taken up by the society, and a 
notable work has been carried on under Captain Bickel. 

In the year 1890, when I was first in Japan, the 
guest of Rev. R. A. Thomsen, I found him full of zeal 
to have something special done for the half -million or 
more dwellers on the charming Inland Sea. Encouraged 
by me, he sought a boat-builder of some skill, and had 
drawn a simple design for a houseboat, which we 
thought would be suitable for a missionary's abode 
while touring about among the hundreds of islets in 
that remarkable archipelago. That plan I brought home 
with me, and showed it to our committee. Meanwhile, 
Mr. Thomsen kept mulling over his hopes. It seems 
that Madam Allan, of Glasgow, mother of several of 
the owners of the great steamship line of that name, 
some time before, had been navigating through the 
China and Japan Seas, in a tour of the world, and she 
had become interested in the Loo Choo Islands, in 
which no mission work had ever yet been done. She 
had met Mr. Thomsen in Kobe, and expressed to him 
her desire, if it ever became feasible, to begin work 
there through him, if he would undertake it. Mr. 

142 



IN THE SUNRISE KINGDOM 

Thomsen later entered into correspondence with Madam 
Allan, and one day we were surprised by a receipt 
of an English check for £700, to be applied to Mr. 
Thomsen's undertaking, under the oversight of our 
Board. Soon after, taking a native Japanese evangelist 
with him, Mr. Thomsen visited the islands and insti- 
tuted a work which has greatly prospered until now. 

Not long after Madam Allan passed away, her son, 
Mr. Robert Allan, communicated with Mr. Thomsen, 
desiring to continue his mother's work, and, besides, 
he wished, also, on his own account, to institute work 
on the islands of the Inland Sea. He also shortly sent 
a draft for £2,000 for the purpose. 

Not long after, my colleague, Dr. Duncan, one day 
burst into my room, exclaiming: 

"Oh, Mabie, Mabie, I have just received a letter 
from one Luke Bickel, an experienced seaman, as well 
as Bible colporteur in England, who has heard of the 
Allan project, asking that he be permitted to take 
charge of the new line of work! God has sent the 
man !" 

This has proved to have been a part of one of the 
most clearly providential series of incidents in the 
history of our work. 

Mr. Bickel, encouraged by Dr. Duncan, went to 
Glasgow for extended conferences with Mr. Allan. 
Ere many days, Mr. Bickel appeared at our rooms 
with elaborate plans for the new mission ship, all 
furnished by the munificence, nautical experience and 
money of this Presbyterian friend, Mr. Allan. Mr. 
Bickel — now Captain Bickel — shortly proceeded to 
Yokohama, engaged a builder and in time turned out 
his trim ship, the "Fukuin Maru," navigated her round 
to Kobe, and made his first venture among the island- 
ers.. The people at first were shy enough towards the 
stranger, but the captain's tact, indomitable perseverance 
and speedy command of the language soon won him 
friends, and now, after a period of about two decades, 
and thousands of miles of travel over the islands and 
of navigating among their channels, there are scores of 

10 143 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

preaching centers, the nuclei of many churches, and the 
captain is received everywhere as a veritable apostle. 
He can find an improvised chapel in the adjustable, 
partitionless homes of almost any of the villages where 
he appears. In short, what Dr. Grenfell has become 
to the peoples of Labrador, that the genial, self -obliter- 
ating Captain Bickel has become to these islanders. He 
now has a much better style of ship — the "Fukuin 
Maru, No. 2" — fitted with auxiliary steam-power, for 
more rapid and effective service than the pioneer ship. 
To the building and upkeep of both vessels, Mr. Allan 
has always been the foremost contributor. It was my 
pleasure in 1907 to spend several days with Captain 
Bickel on the first ship, and in cruising about amid the 
charming bays of the region. On this occasion I came 
into acquaintance, also, with another good captain, a 
Government officer in charge of one of Japan's naval 
academies, near to which the "Fukuin Maru" finds a 
most convenient home anchorage. This Japanese — - 
Captain Kobayashi — has become one of Captain Bickel's 
best friends and sympathizers. The deep, heart-to-heart 
talks I had with this English-speaking Japanese officer 
remain as one of the most satisfying points of contact 
I was ever permitted to establish with an Oriental. As 
the result of three friendly calls, accompanied by his 
beautiful Christian wife, a close bond of friendship was 
established which abides to this day. How the man 
venerates the missionary captain and his wife always 
resident on the ship with her husband. It has become 
the custom long since for numbers of the little 
bluejackets in the naval school to come evenings and 
on Sundays to this Bethel, to learn to play the organ 
and sing gospel songs. Doubtless the place has proved 
to be the very gate of heaven to many of these suscepti- 
ble young souls. The Japanese captain has frequently 
said that the influence of Captain Bickel was his main 
reliance in the simplification of problems of discipline 
occurring in the academy. 

What the line of work done by Captain Janes and 
Guido Verbeck in Kumomoto was in the very early 

144 



IN THE SUNRISE KINGDOM 

days of Japan's awakening, that the work of the 
devoted Captain Bickel has been in this section of the 
Sunrise Kingdom. I shall ever be thankful for the 
little part I, almost unwittingly, had in the promotion 
of the "Fukuin Maru" enterprise. Were not these 
regions among those of whom the prophet long ago 
said, "And the isles shall wait for his law"? How 
blest the messenger that can even help to bear it to 
them. 



145 



XVIII 

IN THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE 

THERE were several things which gave zest to my 
visit to China: first, my long-time admiration of, 
and some intimacy of relations with, Dr. William 
Ashmore, who devoted a half-century to work in that 
land. Dr. Ashmore had written vigorously, as well as 
given very notable platform addresses before the 
denomination. 

At the Minneapolis meeting, as chairman of the 
committee on China, which, according to custom in 
those days, was given an entire year in which to prepare 
its report, I read a paper on the China mission, which 
awakened a good deal of interest. It pleaded for a 
much larger proportion of attention than our denomi- 
nation had previously given to this part of the world. 
Dr. Ashmore was greatly cheered by this report, and 
he followed it with one of his greatest addresses. I 
think it is not too much to claim that, from that day, 
China began to loom larger on the Baptist horizon. 
The mission to West China and the general expansion 
inland were among the things really initiated and 
strongly advocated under Dr. Ashmore's administration 
as corresponding secretary of the Union. The mission 
to Hanyang, in particular, really a part of Hankow, 
sprang out of my own suggestion, and was the impor- 
tant advance movement initiated in 1891, growing out 
of my visits to the place the year previous. It was 
really the most signal step forward projected in connec- 
tion with the "Carey Centenary." In that year, 1892, 
the society for the first time in its history raised a 
total from all sources of more than one million dollars. 
The Board voted to open work in Hanyang, and desig- 

146 



IN THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE 

nated Rev. J. S. Adams and wife, formerly of Kinhwa, 
to inaugurate the work. This movement was most 
cordially invited by the veteran Dr. Griffith John, of 
the London Society. He had been in the region for 
nearly fifty years, and he and his associates, uniformly, 
until Mr. Adams' death in 1912, stood in most cordial 
relations to this Baptist work. This was true, also, of 
the English Wesleyans, the American Episcopalians, the 
Scottish Bible Society, and others. The mission grew 
to have three outstations apart from Hanyang, with a 
total membership of about six hundred souls. A strong 
hospital had also been added to the mission. By agree- 
ment with the other missions, the whole section of the 
land lying between the Yangtsekiang and the Han 
Rivers was assigned to the American Baptists. Until 
the decease of Mr. Adams, and as aided by a fair staff 
of several devoted coworkers, the mission made steady 
progress. Hanyang is situated at the head of naviga- 
tion, in the most strategic center in all China, at the 
point where the Peking-Canton-Central China Railway 
is to cross the river. As the total population in the 
three cities is more than one million people, it seems 
to the writer to be a center of foremost importance in 
the empire. It has astonished me that there should 
ever have arisen counsels which have resulted in the 
practical extinction of the station as a center for 
Baptist work. 

Again, my attendance on the first great Ecumenical 
Conference in London, in 1888, had rolled upon me a 
new sense of the immense moment of China as a 
mission field. A most prominent figure in the London 
meeting was Rev. Hudson Taylor, general director of 
the China Inland Mission. He was a man of most 
apostolic mold. I later came to know him well, and I 
have twice visited his grave at Ching Kiang. I had 
also been deeply impressed by a book entitled "In the 
Far East," letters written by Miss Geraldine Guinness. 
This book is the most ideally impressive thing for 
foreign missionary candidates to read that I have ever 
seen. This gifted woman has since, in collaboration 

147 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

with her husband, Dr. J. Howard Taylor, become the 
historian of the China Inland Mission, and they have 
jointly written an uncommon biography of the founder. 
The evidences of a new awakening in China were 
numerous. While, therefore, my interest to see for 
myself that firstborn of our Baptist foreign missions in 
Burma, and also in the Telugu land, which had so 
powerfully appealed to me in student days, was para- 
mount, yet my interest in visiting China was scarcely 
less marked. Arrived in this latter country, my interest 
greatly deepened. The large group of missionaries in 
Shanghai was a most impressive body to meet. Indeed, 
many of them were on the wharf at the landing as our 
steamer, the "Yokohama Maru," from Japan, drew 
alongside, and foremost to welcome me was Rev. 
D. W. Herring, of the Southern Baptist Board, in 
Chinese costume. He afforded me hospitality for about 
three weeks, in the old mission house built by Dr. 
Matthew T. Yates, the pioneer of a number of mis- 
sionaries in China from North Carolina. I was invited 
to lead the large weekly prayer-meeting of the mission- 
ary representatives, on Saturday afternoon. I recall 
among these stalwarts Dr. Timothy Richard, our 
English Baptist sage ; Dr. Young J. Allen, of the 
Southern Methodist Board, and editor of a special 
magazine for the literati of China; Dr. Edkin and Dr. 
Morehead, of the London Society; several medical and 
China Inland missionaries, not to mention the names of 
those of a dozen other denominations. They were a 
strong and impressive body. I was repeatedly a guest 
of Mr. Stevenson, superintendent of the spacious China 
Inland headquarters, the most complete establishment 
of its kind, and the most businesslike that I have seen 
in any mission land, unless I except our own press in 
Rangoon. It was virtually a settlement, built in quad- 
rangular form about a lovely lawn. It was at once a 
temporary boarding establishment, a supply depot, a 
chapel, a series of business offices, and on one side a row 
of accommodations for native Chinese preachers, when 
they should visit the headquarters. It cost about eighty 

148 



IN THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE 

thousand dollars, and was the gift of one man in 
England, the devoted Mr. Orr-Ewing, who, in addition, 
himself came to China, donned Chinese dress, and 
devoted quite a period to personal missionary service. 
Accompanied by a Mr. J. R. Liddiard, of the board of 
the London Society, I took a trip up the river to 
Nanking, under escort of Miss Butler, of the American 
Friends' Mission, and another Presbyterian lady. Arriv- 
ing at Hankow, we were met by Dr. Griffith John 
and became his guests for several days, including 
a Sabbath. I was greatly impressed with the large 
native congregations. This friendship with Griffith 
John ripened into a permanent one, which continued 
until his death, in 1910. This great man, with his 
coworkers, had been the means of gathering, within 
a period of forty years, a native Chinese church in and 
about this great central station of nearly eight thousand 
Christians. He was virtually the man who providen- 
tially, through much tribulation, won entrance for mis- 
sions into the hostile province of Hunan. On one 
occasion afterwards he was given almost a state 
entrance into its capital city, Changsha. Dr. John was 
also the long-time and much-appreciated foreign friend 
of the Viceroy, Chang Chi Tung, of Wuchang, the walled 
city across the river. It was this great Viceroy who 
wrote "China's Only Hope," who employed his fortune 
in educating the Chinese abroad, and who built the 
great rolling-mills and gun factories in Hanyang, which 
have since become so famous. In many lines of manu- 
facture it resembles a part of our own Pittsburgh. Dr. 
John himself tramped with me all over the slopes of the 
Hanyang Hill, and laid out in glowing colors the 
prospect for the Baptist mission, which he waited to 
forward so fraternally, when his former friend, Mr. 
Adams, should arrive. I here also met Mr. Arnold 
Foster, virtual successor of Dr. John in the London 
mission, still living, and the genial Dr. Gillison, in 
charge of the London Society Hospital. Here, also, 
I heard much about the saintly David Hill, of the 
Wesleyan Society. He was, however, away in the 

149 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

country at the time, but the story of his great power 
over the Chinese enchanted me. Mrs. Howard Taylor 
has told, perhaps, the principal story connected with his 
apostolic work. It is an account of one "Pastor Hsi, 
one of China's scholars," and yet for years a confirmed 
opium eater. On meeting him, Mr. Hill fairly mag- 
netized him into confidence, and the man himself not 
only was recovered from the opium habit, but became 
the means of establishing more than forty refuges for 
other victims of the drug. Dr. Gillison's tales of the 
manner in which God blessed the medical work, fairly 
opening the way for the foreigner's gospel message in 
remote quarters, moved me deeply. At Hankow, also, 
I was more than pleased to meet Mr. Warner, of our 
West China mission, who had come all the way down 
the river from Sui-Fu to meet me and confer with 
reference to the expansion of work opened by him 
and others in the mountain province of Sze-Chuan. 

On the way up the river, as intimated, I visited the 
historic city of Nanking, and was the guest of many 
societies — the Presbyterian, the American Methodist, the 
Friends' Society, etc. With Dr. Beebe, in charge of 
the Philander Smith Memorial Hospital, I went out to 
see the celebrated tombs of the Ming Dynasty, which 
ruled three or four hundred years before. We encoun- 
tered a singular procession sent by royalty from Pekin 
to pray at this shrine for rain, of which the whole 
country was in dire need. The day after, while waiting 
on the wharf at Nanking nearly a whole day for a 
steamer stranded somewhere on a sandbank of the 
lower river, Mr. Liddiard and I had unique experiences 
with the native Chinese, who, like ourselves, were 
awaiting the delayed steamer. I grew tired and went 
over under the shade of a "landing hulk" on the river- 
bank, and, throwing down my overcoat for a rug and 
my grip for a pillow, I prepared for a nap. But what 
was my surprise to see a young man approach, who, by 
mere signs, made me understand I was to come with 
him. I rose and followed, and this kindly man led me 
around to a retired sort of private landing and showed 

150 



IN THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE 

me inside his own houseboat. There he fixed up for 
me a sort of couch, and made me understand I could 
rest there unmolested. After I had slept, this same 
man came a second time, bringing a friend with him, 
and signified to me that, as a boat was coming up the 
river which he must now meet, his friend would take 
me to his houseboat, and there I could continue my 
rest. Later, another man brought to my friend and 
myself some fresh-boiled eggs and a large plate of the 
cleanest, white cooked rice, and bade us eat. When we 
offered him pay for the same he quite spiritedly declined 
any payment. I made some effort to make some of 
these friendly folk understand the sort of people we 
really were. Taking out of my pocket my little diamond 
edition of the Scriptures, I gathered a group around 
me, and by signs alone, I caused them to understand that 
this book, unlike their books, read horizontally, from 
left to right, and then, pointing upward to the skies, I 
indicated that it spoke of the God of heaven, and then, 
clasping it to my breast, made them see that the book 
was very dear to me, and that between my heart and 
the Being above there was fellowship. Is there not a 
language of the heart so that by signs he who will 
may be a real missionary, even while transiently passing 
through an unknown land and ignorant of the lan- 
guage? "One touch of [grace] makes the whole world 
kin." 

On the return to Shanghai we also touched at 
Ching Kiang. We met Brethren Bryan and Bostick, of 
the Southern Baptist mission, and by the time we were 
at the coast again we felt quite naturalized ; at least, to 
missionary China. 

I also went to Ningpo, visited Dr. and Mrs. God- 
dard, Dr. and Mrs. Grant and the young women of 
the mission. I had most interesting sessions with Dr. 
Goddard's staff of a dozen or more native preachers, 
including a representative from the island of Chusan, 
Dr. Goddard interpreting. I visited the graves of a 
number of missionaries who had laid down their lives 
on this field — among them Dr. Lord and Rev. M. J. 

151 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Knowlton. I also visited the Presbyterian mission, 
across the river from ours, and, with Dr. Goddard, 
took a foot-boat trip a hundred miles up the Tsung 
River to visit Dr. Jenkins and wife. There, also, for 
the first time I met Rev. J. S. Adams and his twelve- 
year-old son Arthur, now a missionary himself at 
Hopo, on the Swatow field, and there began a valuable 
friendship, and an appreciation of Mr. Adams as an 
experienced missionary to the Chinese, and among the 
foremost, which time will not efface. 

Next, we went down to Hongkong and Canton. At 
Canton we became the guests of Dr. and Mrs. R. S. 
Graves and their confreres, who had much to show 
us of the fruits of nearly half a century of work under 
the auspices of the Richmond Board. There we found 
about four thousand Christians, a series of good schools, 
the beginning of a good seminary for ministerial train- 
ing, a printing establishment, etc. In Canton, also, I 
met representatives of numbers of societies, and chief 
among them was the very uncommon medical and 
surgical veteran, Dr. J. G. Kerr, in charge of the large 
Presbyterian hospital. He had established, also, a full- 
fledged medical school of instruction for the native 
Chinese. Some of these men were adepts as lecturers 
on anatomy and surgery. Some were very skillful in 
delicate operations on the eye, as in removal of cata- 
ract and for the excision of huge tumors. Dr. Kerr 
told me that he himself had performed more than 
twenty-five thousand major operations for lithotomy 
alone since being in that hospital. In such cases, 
abounding in China, he was probably the greatest 
specialist of his time, in any country. We were dined 
by the Hon. Mr. Seymour, our United States Consul, 
at his home on the island of Shameen. At this table 
we were also favored to meet the veteran Dr. Happer, 
of the American Presbyterian mission, and founder 
of the college now known as the American Christian 
College. I preached in the large parlors of the hospital 
on Sunday night to the missionary colony. 

But what a mass of heathenism in the raw, what 

152 



IN THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE 

squalor and filth, with ditches running green and foul 
with slime, from which the common people fill their 
very teakettles, is Canton! Some advocates of the 
relative worth of all types of "ethnic religions" I 
occasionally hear of ought to have an enforced resi- 
dence in Canton — the native city — for six months (if 
they could survive so long) ; it would help their 
theoretic views. 

From Canton we went to Macao to visit the grave 
of the immortal Morrison, located in a secluded and 
beautiful cemetery on the side of the city. Dr. Morri- 
son, his wife Mary, and their infant son, J. R., all here 
sleep side by side. It was this man who, when on his 
way to China on an American ship, being asked by 
the captain if he "supposed he could change conserva- 
tive, rock-bound old China?" answered, "No, I can not 
but my God can do it." And hasn't he done it, espe- 
cially within the last generation? In fifty years scarcely 
fifty reliable converts ; in the next thirty years perhaps 
thirty thousand, but in the last twenty-five years nearly 
three hundred thousand. What hath God wrought! 

We reserved till the last our visit to Swatow and to 
the Ashmores. Bro. J. W. Foster met us on arrival 
of the steamer and took us in one of the mission boats 
a mile or so to the mission landing at Kah Chieh. The 
compound, once a mass of bare, uneven, sponge-like 
rock, has been terraced, planted and cultivated to a 
high pitch of Oriental perfection. Beautiful banyan- 
trees prevail, and as they extend their lacework forma- 
tion of roots over some of the embankments with rocky 
sides, they are very picturesque. Flowers and potted 
plants, especially chrysanthemums, under the skill of 
native gardeners, have made this once desolate place a 
rare garden of delights. A half-dozen mission-houses, 
a hospital embracing two or three buildings, a com- 
modious chapel and school buildings for both sexes are 
disposed about the compound. Dr. Scott, Dr. Foster, 
Dr. and Mrs. Carlin, Rev. George Campbell and wife 
and Mr. and Mrs. Norvell composed the missionary- 
colony. 

153 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

We took an extended houseboat trip up the river 
to the Kityang district, and saw several meetings of 
natives in the open country. On this trip we had our first 
sight of lepers, so abounding in the Orient. One of 
Dr. Ashmore's principal preaching-points was across 
the bay, in the city of Swatow. Here we saw and 
heard the missionaries preaching to the natives. In 
Swatow City, also, we had delightful fellowship with 
the now veteran English Presbyterian missionary, Dr. 
J. C. Gibson, a man of very uncommon abilities. We 
also met Dr. Lyle, the very capable head of the Presby- 
terian hospital, and Mrs. Lyle. This mission just 
across the bay from ours has had an equal, if not even 
superior, prosperity to our own, each mission having in its 
constituency about four thousand actual members, and 
with numerous stations through the backlying country. 
We also went with Dr. Ashmore and Mr. Foster to 
Chao Chao Fu, beautifully situated forty miles above 
Swatow on a river which empties into the Swatow Bay. 
There is here a remarkably picturesque antique bridge. 
The sides of the several spans of the bridge are 
peopled with a veritable village of dwellers. We visited 
a quaint old Buddhist temple, located on the Golden 
Pagoda Hill, from which, looking across the country 
to a vast, expanding hillside, we saw what appeared to 
be several square miles, long occupied as a cemetery. 
Many thousands, through the generations, have been 
buried there, and, as Dr. Ashmore said, "they lie in 
those graves three and four deep, one upon another." 
The fact is, large areas in China are one vast burial- 
place, where, for four thousand years, the poor pagan 
generations, one after another, have laid them down to 
die, with no certain light on the future. And yet for 
two thousand years Christianity has had its doctrine of 
the resurrection and the living Christ. In Dr. Ash- 
more's home, and on those boat trips up and down the 
river, we discussed everything connected with mission- 
ary policy, and for the various lands in which Dr. 
Ashmore, far more than most men of his time, had 
traveled and observed closely. And for him and his 

154 



IN THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE 

matured wisdom, not to mention his uncommon insight 
into the Christian Scriptures, the writer came to have 
a great veneration. 

When Dr. Ashmore passed, the Baptists of America 
lost a master missionary and a world statesman. Since 
Judson, it is doubtful if American Baptists have had so 
commanding a missionary personality. He read, marked 
and digested more papers and periodicals, daily, than any 
man I ever knew. There was nothing- in history, state- 
craft, philosophy, or theology, with which he was not 
familiar, and he wrote enough matter relating to mis- 
sions in all its forms, and in the most piquant style, to 
have filled a score of volumes, and yet the public has no 
single book from his pen, nor has any biography of him 
ever yet been written. To this great personage I con- 
fess a debt beyond estimate, for my profound and fixed 
interest in the character and promise of China, as a 
prime missionary asset for Christians of every name in 
this twentieth century. 

The concluding impressions of China that were 
throughout cumulative, on this first missionary journey, 
were derived from a week's visit to Singapore, the 
metropolis of the Straits Settlement. Hither great num- 
bers of the more enterprising of the Chinese have 
migrated, being the leading merchants, ship-owners, 
artisans, and commission men of the city. Many of them 
have grown very rich. They have also learned well the 
English language, and they are often public-spirited and 
benevolent. They have done the greater part, with 
funds and patronage, to found and support the great 
Anglo-Chinese school established by the American 
Methodists under Bishop Thoburn and the no less able 
Dr. Oldham. Chinese of similar spirit to those in Sin- 
gapore have also in great numbers gone to the Philip- 
pines, to Java, and other islands of Polynesia, and they 
are filling Burma and India proper. 



155 



XIX 
IN THE LAND OF JUDSON 

BY whatever geographical or other name Burma is 
described, to American Baptists it will always be 
best known as the land of Judson, and the three 
noble women who became successively the sharers of 
his toils and sufferings. The great new era that came 
to our people denominationally began with the interest 
and public spirit that were aroused for the support of 
the Judsons. Not only was a new accent given to the 
New Testament faith as held by Baptists, by Judson's 
avowal of it under peculiarly trying circumstances, but 
they began to entertain new and deeper views of life 
and being than before had seemed possible. Even 
children, to whom the story was told of what these 
heroic souls had encountered in facing particularly the 
imprisonments at Ava and Aungbingleh, were power- 
fully affected by those events. 

Accordingly, when I found myself sailing up the 
muddy waters of the Rangoon River, and caught the first 
glint of the sunrise on the great Shweydagong pagoda, 
towering above the city, the sensation was most exciting. 
I was met at the landing and escorted to the home of 
Dr. and Mrs. Rose for entertainment. Here also Rev. 
D. L. Brayton, the father of Mrs. Rose, had his home. 
His devoted and much-beloved wife had passed away 
only three days before. The first religious service I 
attended in this interesting land was for the celebration 
of the Lord's Supper in the little Pwo Karen chapel. I 
also there heard Father Brayton himself speak on the 
triumphant home-going of his dear wife, who had for 
long been so much to the large company of Karen 
women and girls present. The calm, unshaken faith of 

156 



IN THE LAND OF JUDSON 

the old missionary, who had already served sixty-two 
years in Burma, was beautiful to behold. Mrs. Brayton 
was the cherished sister of the mother of my chum in 
college and for years after, Mrs. Edward Savage, of 
Joliet, Illinois, referred to in an earlier chapter. She, 
next to my dear mother, had done most to foster in me 
the sense of the great honor that comes to the really 
called Christian minister. The traditions treasured in 
the Savage home, respecting the work of the Bray tons, 
were quite familiar to me. I had also come to know 
in his student days in America the Karen, Thanbyah, 
now secretary of the native Baptist convention of 
Burma, a protege of the Braytons. 

I found Rangoon a very beehive of religious and 
Baptist activity. The missionary colony numbered nearly 
a score of families. In addition to those already named, 
the chief one of interest to me was "Mamma Bennett," 
the senior of them all, wife of the former mission print- 
er, Rev. Cephas Bennett. She had been the contem- 
porary of the Judsons. In the period of Judson's be- 
reavement after the death of his second wife, she had 
made a home for him in Moulmein. There were Mrs. 
Brainerd Vinton and her children, Dr. J. N. Cushing 
and Mrs. Seagrave, and others, connected with various 
departments of the work, living in Rangoon. At Insein, 
the pleasing suburb where is located our Theological 
Institution, was "Mamma Stevens," also a contempo- 
rary of the Judsons, and the mother of Mrs. D. A. W. 
Smith, whose husband is at this writing a veteran of 
more than fifty years' standing among the Karen mission- 
aries and the most efficient president of the seminary. In 
Rangoon was the great mission press, printing in a score 
of dialects, not only the beginnings of a Christian liter- 
ature, but also school-books for the Government, in the 
further development of its new citizenship — a truly re- 
markable institution. Here were schools beginning with 
the college started by Dr. J. G. Binney ; schools for 
both boys and girls of various races, Sgau Karens, 
Burmans, Pwo Karens, Eurasians, Telugus and Tamils. 
Here also was a large English-speaking church com- 

157 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

posed of the missionary families and Anglo-Indians, 
before whom I preached one Sunday evening. 

Rangoon is practically an English city, numbering 
then about one hundred and fifty thousand souls, now 
many more. It is a large seaport, and has among its 
population many thousands of Chinese, plying a great 
variety of trades or practising the manual arts. So, in 
visiting these many centers of activity, I was kept very 
busy throughout all the time I could give to this en- 
trepot of the country. Later I visited in succession 
Moulmein, Maubin, Bassein, Toungoo, Pegu, Mandalay 
and Sagaing. I was accompanied on all these visits by 
one or more of the missionary brothers or sisters, and in 
all these places we had the most interesting of meet- 
ings in the missionary homes and in the native chapels 
or schools. 

Dr. Brayton proposed to be my companion on 
the trip to Moulmein. He had himself resided there 
in the early years, in charge of the Pwo Karen 
work. I could not have been more favored in my 
guide to this historic spot. We took passage on the 
day steamer from Rangoon, crossing over the Gulf 
of Martaban and up the bay of the Salwen River, a 
sail of about ten hours. The dear old veteran, though 
recently so sorely bereaved, was full of praise of the 
divine goodness which had brought him and his dear 
wife to live and labor in this land for so long a period. 
He was full of memories of the beginnings of the 
work. He vividly retraced for me the pages of its 
progress, and tenderly described the personages who 
had been his companions. The ship which had brought 
him, the bark "Rosabella," from Boston in 1837, was 
a vessel of only three hundred tons. It was a voyage 
of five months' duration. They had for companions 
the Stevenses and Stillsons. The ship also brought the 
paper for the first edition of Judson's Burman Bible. 
They landed at Amherst, and were met, first by Brother 
Haswell, and soon after by Judson and Osgood, the 
missionary printer. Speaking of missionary trials, he 
remarked : 

158 



IN THE LAND OF JUDSON 

"Talk not of trials; speak of privileges. Think of 
what it is to see the dark countenance of a heathen 
light up at your message — a joy worldlings know noth- 
ing about. Don't mention sacrifices ; they are not worth 
talking about. I was associated with Judson for thir- 
teen years, but I never heard him say a word about 
suffering, unless drawn out, and then he would check 
and rebuke himself." 

Dr. Brayton's account of his country tours, accom- 
panied by his devoted wife, often carried by natives in an 
American rocking-chair through the jungles, and the 
eagerness with which the poor people would cluster 
about their boat, or a zayat, was most touching. This 
was the time when the Karens were divulging their 
cherished traditions respecting a "paradise" and a 
"sacred book" which their ancestors had lost, and this 
Book of the white messenger from afar was full of 
interest to them. They would ask, "Does the white 
book contain anything that can cure the sorrows of 
the heart?" 

"For thirty-five years," said the veteran, "our life 
was filled up with such experiences;" and his eagerness 
for more was unabated. 

He had latterly been revising the Pwo Karen Bible, 
rising daily at four o'clock in the morning to toil upon 
it. Ah ! that was a great day I had with the old veteran, 
keen for the battle still as a disciplined war-horse. 

At about 2 p. m. the long, low shore on which 
Amherst was situated appeared. Just in line with the 
pagoda, dimly seen rising on the horizon, rest the ashes 
of Ann Hasseltine judson and the infant Maria. Find- 
ing them sleeping together in that grave constituted one 
of the severest shocks that came to Judson on his 
return from Ava, in the early days. We steam on 
twenty-five miles farther up the river. Rice and timber 
mills appear, with huge elephants piling lumber in the 
yards along the bank. Majestic cocoa palms adorn the 
slopes. Mammoth pagodas, gold-covered, often streaked 
with green or gray growths of herbage in the crevices, 
crowned the principal heights, and flashed back upon 

11 159 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

us the westering sunlight. All was picturesque and 
historic. The place is also hallowed as the sanctuary 
where the Burman Bible was translated and printed, 
and whence issued those letters recording personal 
bereavements and fiery disciplines, but, withal, with those 
high ideals for the heathen which for three generations 
have thrilled the church with a power scarcely less than 
the Epistles of St. Paul. 

About 4 p. m. we reach Moulmein, and our vessel 
is made fast to her moorings. The docks are crowded 
with a motley group of Orientals — red-skirted Burmans ; 
white-turbaned Tamils, Telugus and Klings from India 
proper ; the Bengali ; the omnipresent pig-tailed China- 
man; the shy, wild Shan; the Talign, the Arab and the 
Sikh. Pressing through the clamorous crowd we see 
two missionary figures, Revs. E. O. Stevens and W. F. 
Armstrong, coming to welcome us. 

I was shown to a garry, or cab, and left sitting for 
a few minutes while the brethren were disposing of 
some baggage. I soon espied, just across the narrow 
way, the figure of an aged woman, with wrinkled 
features, eyeing me closely. I politely salaamed to her, 
whereupon she approached the garry and, through the 
open door, extended her long, lean hand, and muttered 
something in Burmese. I clasped her hand warmly and 
looked into the beaming face. Just then Brother 
Stevens came up, and explained that this was one of 
the four or five old believers still living who had been 
won to Christ and baptized by Dr. Judson in the long 
ago. And we shook hands again the more eagerly, 
while Brother Stevens conveyed the thanks she was 
speaking for all that American friends had done for 
her and her poor people. A new realization of the old 
hymn, "Blest Be the Tie that Binds," came over me. 

I need not here describe all the interesting spots I 
was keen to visit at this wondrous shrine: the old press 
building; the now vacant Judson compound, marked 
only by four frangipani-trees, planted by Judson him- 
self ; the Boardman place ; the Burman church building, 
remodeled since Judson's time; the splendid Morton 

160 



IN THE LAND OF JUDSON 

Lane Girls' School, of which the Woman's Society in 
Boston is so justly proud; the Eurasian and the Burman 
Boys' Schools; the large Karen boarding-school and 
chapel; the cemetery, where sleep so many of the 
saintly men and women, and not a few of their 
children ; the native bazaars, etc. 

At the Karen schoolbuilding, in a part of which 
the Bulkleys had their home, a large reception was 
given us in the evening. I preached one evening to 
the English-speaking people. I made it a special duty, 
as well as pleasure, to call on Dr. Moung Shawloo and 
family, a Burman of high standing and usefulness as a 
physician in Moulmein. He was educated in Bucknell 
University and in some leading American medical insti- 
tution. I once had seen him in my student days, at the 
Chicago meeting of the Anniversaries, and I was 
delighted again to meet him here, and to find that he 
was pursuing so useful a career. 

Among the events of thrilling interest I shared in 
and about Moulmein was the side trip taken by Dr. 
Edward O. Stevens and myself to Amherst, to visit 
the grave of Mrs. Ann H. Judson. The trip was 
taken by night, in a Bengalee boat rowed by four 
strong oarsmen, who stood as they rowed. Brother 
Stevens charmed me on the way with his reminiscences 
of Judson, especially of his regretful last embarkation, 
which, as a boy, Stevens had witnessed. We arrived 
at seven in the morning. We were met at the simple 
landing by one of the Christian disciples, husband of 
Ma-Theh-Oo, who, under the conduct of Miss Susie 
Haswell, had spent three years in America. They had 
breakfast waiting for us, and shortly thereafter we 
made our way to the sacred spot under the once historic 
hopia-tree, now gone, where lay the mortal remains 
of Mrs. Judson and her infant child. 

There were with us a few Burman sympathizers. 
The graves were overgrown with the shrub called 
lantana. We stood and reverently read the inscription 
on the plain slab within the plain, wooden enclosure, 
which was erected by an appreciative Christian English 

161 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

sea captain, James Hague, father of the distinguished 
Dr. William Hague, of Boston fame. It was with 
hallowed interest that I stood by this martyr grave, 
and entered anew into lifelong fellowship with all that 
those great lives stand for in the kingdom of Christ. 

Since my visit, the grave, on account of the 
encroachments of the sea upon the place, has been 
removed to a safe spot, many yards distant from the 
shore, and a neat iron fence erected about it. In 
Amherst, also, I met another veteran disciple of Jud- 
son's, the Burman woman Ko-Lake, eighty-two years 
of age. The next night we returned by the same boat 
to Moulmein, and the day after we were on our way 
back to Rangoon, much enriched with interest in all 
the sublime events connected with American Baptist 
mission history wrought out in Moulmein. 

I had a special joy in visiting the Bassein mission. 
For ten years it was the home of Mrs. Helen L. 
Beecher, the daughter of my early pastor, Roe, in 
Belvidere, and the eldest sister of my dear wife. She 
went to Burma in 1856 as the second wife of Rev. 
John S. Beecher, one of the underground workers in 
industrial lines, yet, withal, an uncommon Christian 
teacher in the mission. I had read with absorbing 
interest Carpenter's "Self-support in Bassein," which 
was the best preparation for understanding the situation 
in this ripest center of self-supporting, self -administer- 
ing work in any of our Baptist foreign fields. Three 
generations of missionaries, in charge of the large 
Sgau Karen portion of the Bassein work, have each 
been wise and unselfish enough to build upon the 
foundations so well laid by the pioneer, Elisha L. 
Abbott, one of the greatest of all the Karen mission- 
aries. First came Abbott, then Beecher, then Dr. C. H. 
Carpenter, and the last and present incumbent is Rev. 
C. A. Nichols, D.D. 

The industrial features of the work are very prom- 
inent, and in the development of these Dr. Nichols has 
played the most prominent part. I found a large 
lumber-mill running, with approved types of American 

162 



IN THE LAND OF JUDSQN 

machinery, like Rogers planers and Diston saws. 
They also carry on an important steam launch and 
boat building industry. They have an ice factory and 
large rice-mills, the whole country round about being 
one of the most productive rice-growing regions in the 
entire East. And all these establishments are conducted 
and worked exclusively by native Karens. The super- 
intendents, directors, bookkeepers and all employes are 
natives. From the profits of these industries the sup- 
port of the Ko~Thah-Byu memorial school is derived. 
The Karens are naturally musicians. Practice on brass 
and wind instruments has long entered into the course 
of instruction, and on every school day of the year 
one may hear the classic compositions of Western mas- 
ters rendered. Efficient choral societies exist in the 
Bassein schools, and their productions have long awak- 
ened the admiration of the foremost British officials 
and foreign visitors. Moreover, the large force of 
native preachers are men of originality, spirituality and 
power. 

In Bassein there has long been carried on, also, a 
very successful work among the Pwo Karens, some 
thousands of them having been gathered into churches 
and schools. Both the boys' and girls' schools in 
Bassein City have thriven under devoted workers. Dr. 
L. W. Cronkhite, assisted by Miss Sarah Higby and 
Miss Louise Tschirch, has been long the skillful director 
in general of the Pwo Karen work in the district. 

A most worthy work, also, has been carried on 
among the Burmans, superintended by such workers 
as Melvin Jameson, Rev. E. Tribolet and Rev. W. L. 
Soper, now in charge. 

One of the outstanding events in my tour of Burma 
was the visit to Toungoo and to the associational gath- 
erings of the B'ghai Christians. Toungoo has long 
been one of our foremost Burman centers. Dr. Francis 
Mason there early pioneered the way. Dr. E. B. Cross, 
also, lived and labored there for sixty-one years, among 
a branch of the Karens known as the Pakus. He 
passed away in 1905, and his son B. P. and his son-in- 

163 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

law, A. V. B. Crumb, have succeeded to his labors. 
On one of the Sundays I was in Toungoo I went over 
to the Paku Karen compound, two or three miles away 
from Dr. Bunker's, to dine with Dr. Cross. I found 
him pretty hale, considering that he came out in 1844, 
and had survived long enough to round out more than 
a half -century, putting him in the class of Father Bray- 
ton, Mamma Bennett and Mrs. E. A. Stevens. We 
had high converse respecting the early days in his 
career. 

After dinner I was favored with a call from a 
character I was quite surprised to see, a Karen woman, 
La-eu, the nursegirl to my four nieces — the Beecher 
girls — when they were children in Bassein. She was 
now the wife of one Pah Hah, a Government school 
inspector, as well as a trusted deacon in the native 
church at Toungoo. 

In Toungoo, other well-known workers, like M. H. 
Bixby, J. N. Cushing, J. E. Cochrane, Dr. Bunker and 
Dr. Truman Johnson, with various heroic women, have 
also labored. There are four departments of work; 
viz., for Burmans, for Shans, and for the two divisions 
of the Karens above named. There are good mission 
houses and several strongly equipped schools. 

Dr. Alonzo Bunker was the missionary in charge of 
the B'ghai Karen work, who had arranged for my 
attendance on the association above referred to. It was 
to be held in the mountains many miles away to the 
eastward. There was quite a party of us — Drs. Cush- 
ing and Johnson; Rev. W. W. Cochrane, just arrived 
from home; several Karen preachers, fourteen coolies, 
Mr. Waterman and myself, and Peter, the genial Telugu 
cook. We had four ponies and two elephants bearing 
our camping outfit, tents and provisions. We were 
quite a caravan, Dr. Bunker in command. It was a 
weird journey, fording a river; then through tall tiger- 
grass on the river flats; then across shallow but dash- 
ing mountain streams ; through majestic forests filled 
with towering trees and broad, spreading banyans, with 
the rough -barked rattan often festooning the treetops 

164 



IN THE LAND OF JUDSON 

together, alive with chattering monkeys ; through clumps 
of bamboos, in scores of species; through Government 
preserves of teak, and amid many forms of palms. 

Anon we climb lofty hills, along narrow, winding 
bridle-paths, wondering betimes how the elephants could 
ever make their way, but they skipped up like goats. 
At one point we met a procession of nine great " Jumbos/' 
each mounted by a lusty Karen, coming down with 
baskets of mountain-grown rice for market. They are 
told that the secretary of the American Society, that 
has done so much for the Karens, is in our party, and 
wishes to photograph their menagerie, whereupon, in a 
few moments, the whole procession stands at attention 
and the snapshot is taken. 

The next day at about 4 p. m. we arrived at the 
lofty eminence, on which a large bamboo tabernacle 
for the meetings and several guest-sheds had been made 
ready for our use. Another party, composed of Brother 
Crumb and several of his assistants, American and 
native, arrived, some on elephants, some on ponies, and 
several on foot. They had come in from the Paku 
district, and would join us in the meetings. There were 
over six hundred delegates in attendance, forty or more 
native pastors, several teachers of schools, and indi- 
vidual choirs from a half-dozen native villages, who 
sang wondrously as the meetings progressed. A Karen 
moderator presided ; Karen clerks read the reports from 
the churches ; lists of amounts contributed by the 
churches, whether in rupees, rice, fowls, pigs or eggs, 
were reported; Karens preached, and morning prayer- 
meetings were held daily before sunrise, and attended by 
crowds. Of course, the visitors from America were 
introduced ; gave their greetings ; told of the deep 
interest felt in far-off America in all their doings; and 
the missionaries exhorted and held up the standards for 
the year to come. It was altogether a rare privilege. 
Such an experience I covet for executive officers of 
every existing foreign missionary society: it seems to 
me indispensable; they need it for their own sakes, 
for the sake of the increased sympathy they will have 

165 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

forever after with their force of workers at the front, 
and for inspirational purposes at home. No theories 
built on abstractions will suffice. 

On the day we broke camp we witnessed this scene: 
Dr. Crumb and party were preparing to plunge out 
again into the jungle, touring their Paku churches. We 
saw an elephant-driver bringing around his big "Jumbo" 
to the tent of Miss Simons, a lady missionary from 
Wisconsin, who stood on the elevated portico of her 
tent, prepared for touring. The great, but friendly, 
beast lowered his head. The missionary girl put her 
dainty foot on his tusk and then on the shoulder of her 
mount, and then with one deft spring she landed in the 
houda. The beast wheeled him about, and began 
ambling down the mountain-side like a moving earth- 
quake, while the delicate girl threw back her farewell 
and salaams for the woman's society in Chicago, with a 
plea that they send on more workers, for the harvest 
was truly great. 

"It takes pluck to do that," was the remark of a 
new missionary, Brother Cochrane, as he stood beside 
me, watching the brave proceeding. 

"Yes, pluck; and grace also," I added, "and partic- 
ularly the latter." But that young missionary, with her 
loving, Christian girls riding beside her, wouldn't have 
exchanged her lot with any young "society belle" in all 
America, and take the risk. She simply pleaded for 
our prayers, and for real, hearty co-operation. Among 
the "red-letter days" of a lifetime, these days were 
recorded. 

On the way back to Toungoo, we spent the night 
in the teak chapel of a Christian village, and early in 
the evening the villagers — apparently the whole of them 
— assembled, as is their wont, for evening worship. It 
was touching to hear them sing the hymn so commonly 
sung at evening prayers in my boyhood home. 

"Thus far the Lord hath led me on, 

Thus far his power prolongs my days, 
And every evening shall make known 
Some fresh memorial to his praise." 
166 



IN THE LAND OF JUDSON 



And it was sung to the old, familiar tune of "Hebron," to 
which our American ears were wont. What wouldn't I 
have given to have had the seven Christian sons and 
two daughters of my sainted old grandfather hear that 
song which he passed on as a family evening hymn to 
his descendants and now sung by redeemed Karens in 
the wilds of Burma? What religion in the world, outside 
of the Christian, can present such evidence of the uni- 
versality of Christianity for mankind? 

Upper Burma, centering about Mandalay, the north- 
ern capital, has a character of its own. It is the very 
stronghold of Burman Buddhism. Literally, thousands 
of pagodas, marks of a past devoteeism, can be seen in 
and about Mandalay. In other cities farther down the 
Irriwadi, like Pagan, there are at present in evidence 
not less than six thousand of these monuments. In 
fact, all upper Burma, on all high places and along the 
prominent river-courses, is filled with them. True, 
many of them are in process of decay. But that does 
not always signify, because these piles, made mostly 
of bricks and mortar, and only whitewashed, were 
erected as works of merit by monarch s or other prom- 
inent persons, and, once built, they are left to the tooth 
of time — as in China, also — to do what it will with 
them. It is only a few of the more prominent and 
artistic ones that are kept in repair. Some of these 
are, from time to time, regilded with pure gold leaf, at 
great expense. 

The chief thing of historic and public interest in 
Mandalay is the extensive quadrangular city wall, a 
mile square. Inside of this is the palace and spacious 
park of the last native Burman monarch, Thibaw. The 
old palace was supposed to be very fine, built of rare 
timbers, mostly in their native, unsawn state, although 
gold-covered, and the chambers of the areas are gaudily 
adorned with Oriental extravagance, and yet tawdry 
and cheap to the eye of any real taste. The throne 
balcony was of interest to me, as being the place 
beneath which some of our missionaries, since Judson's 
time, have been obliged to appear on their faces, if they 

167 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

had anything of moment to lay before the monarch for 
his sanction. 

The environs of Mandalay, especially at old Ava, 
now almost completely obliterated, have their interest 
to one who knows what occurred there in Judson's 
day. The bell-tower of the old royal palace, a dis- 
mantled monastery, and a few native huts still remain. 
The place is shown on which stood the old stockade 
of a prison pen, where Judson, amid filth intolerable 
and a stifling heat, was first confined. 

Aungbinleh is a mere- squalid little village, contain- 
ing a few huts and a very poor sort of monastery, 
peopled by a priest or two of wretched appearance. 
Dr. Packer, of Meiktila; Dr. Kelley, Misses Slater and 
Whitehead, of Moulmein, who had accompanied me up 
the country, and a few Burman schoolgirls made up 
our party. We held a little meeting on the spot. I cut 
from the hedge near by a walking-stick, to take home 
as a souvenir to Dr. Edward Judson. 

On the afternoon of the day when, with Mr. 
Kelley, I visited Ava, a reception was tendered me by 
the missionary families and native Christians, Burmans 
and Karens, in the memorial chapel. A large crowd 
gathered, and greetings were spoken and returned. In 
the midst of the exercises a band of music and march- 
ing feet were heard, and shortly several platoons of 
well-drilled, soldier-like Karens, in uniform, wheeled 
into the compound and were seated in a reserved por- 
tion of the chapel. It was explained to me that these 
were representatives of the native police force of the 
city, a fine body of young men brought on from Dr. 
Bunker's schools in Toungoo, to serve the Government 
for a period in this capacity. 

In the address I gave, I referred to the high feelings 
which had possessed me in the morning's visit to^ Ava, 
and proceeded to moralize on the cross-principle in the 
Christian gospel, which underlay all that Judson was 
and did, the high interest of American Christianity in 
sending out its missionaries to Burma and other parts, 
and that this must ever be the inspiration of the native 

168 



IN THE LAND OF JUDSON 



church in Burma. Mr. Kelley interpreted for me with 
deepest tenderness. The Holy Spirit was there in 
power, and when, at the close, I invited all who were 
prepared to give themselves up with a new devotedness 
to the crucified and risen Jesus, to come forward for 
a special season of prayer, the whole area in front of 
the pulpit was crowded with souls upon their knees, 
among whom were several of the uniformed policemen. 
Some of them prayed with tearful eyes. One sobbing 
fellow came to me at the close, saying he meant to "be 
faithful even unto death." The prayers, of course, were 
in several languages, but they were understood by the 
Spirit. Oh, what a privilege to have had a little hand 
in the actual preaching of the gospel to such, and to 
help heavenward some of these swarthy, but beloved, 
disciples of the cross' 



169 



XX 

ON THE INDIAN CONTINENT 

FROM Burma we took steamer to Calcutta. Our 
sail up the Hoogly River to Calcutta had its own 
impressiveness. The channel is narrow and the 
quicksands are most treacherous. Many a steamer has 
been swallowed up, when once aground. Approaching 
the landing, we passed many extensive jute-mills. The 
shipping, which filled the river, was on a large scale. 
We were met at the steamer by our society's agent, 
Mr. S)4ces, and taken to his home. Within a few 
moments, I was surprised by a call from an English 
cousin of my wife's, one of the Aldis family, who, with 
her husband, Prof. William Trego Webb, was residing 
in Calcutta, and holding an important educational posi- 
tion in the Martini College. Through his kind offices 
I found entree to various circles, including a great 
annual convocation of the University of Calcutta. This 
was held in a large hall, accommodating probably two 
thousand people. 

About forty colleges of India were represented. 
Men were up for degrees, at least five hundred of them, 
in cap and gown, awaiting their diplomas and medals. 
Several native Rajahs of great wealth, with uniformed 
retinues, were present. The Rajahs wore their regalia 
of distinction. Lord Landsdowne, the Governor Gen- 
eral, in his robes of office, presided. Beside him sat 
the native Vice-Chancellor of the University, a leading 
judge of the High Court, Hon. Mr. Das Banergee. He 
gave in faultless English an address on education. In 
the front seats were a half-dozen women in English 
costumes, who had won distinction in their respective 
colleges for scholastic or literary attainments ; and, at 

170 



ON THE INDIAN CONTINENT 

the end of the address, these women were invited to 
the platform, and given diplomas for their well-won 
honors; one for special attainments in mathematics; 
another received "double first-class honors" for pro- 
ficiency in Latin. The building rang with applause as 
these honors were conferred upon them, and this in 
India, and for native Indian women, who, in common 
esteem have, from time immemorial, been so degraded, 
and the possession of souls denied them. But things 
are mightily changing in India. 

I was much pleased to meet and dine in Calcutta 
with Dr. George F. Pentecost, a long-time acquaintance 
at home. I attended some of his public services, heard 
him preach a great sermon on the incarnation, such as 
he still can preach, and I remained for conversation 
with certain English-speaking Brahmans and "Babus" 
at the close of the service. 

One of the objects of interest which I early sought 
out was Carey's old preaching-place, the "Lai-Bazaar" 
Baptist chapel. Here is to be seen the baptistery where 
Adoniram Judson and wife, and Luther Rice, were 
baptized a century ago by Rev. William Ward, one of 
the Serampore triumvirate. We, of course, went out 
to old Serampore, up the river thirteen miles above 
Calcutta. No missionary shrine in the world, in its 
way, is quite so impressive as this. The stately old 
college building erected by Carey, Marshman and 
Ward, out of the profits from their publications, and 
especially from their indigo factory, is the most prom- 
inent object commanding attention. Its site, on the 
high banks of the Hoogly, or Ganges, just facing the 
aristocratic suburb Barrackpore, across the river, where 
many Government officers reside, is superb. Several of 
the old mission houses still remain, and the general 
headquarters of Dr. Carey, embracing within the build- 
ing a pretty chapel. This is just opposite one of the 
"ghats," or broad stone steps, leading down to the 
water of the Ganges. At this place, many historic 
baptisms have occurred, including that of Krishna Pal, 
the first Brahman convert at Serampore, and that of 

171 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Gen. William Henry Havelock, the British military hero, 
who married a daughter of Dr. Marshman. Here, also, 
within the last few years, Bishop Azariah, the first 
Indian native ever made bishop by the Anglican church, 
just after his consecration immersed three candidates. 

The English cemetery, a mile or so from the college, 
was also a place of great interest to me. Here are 
the brick, stucco-covered tombs of the three worthies* 
whose names give undying interest to the spot, and 
several relatives are interred beside them. 

Serampore is a monument to the sublime faith and 
enterprise, as well as business skill, of that great trium- 
virate. They translated main portions of the Bible into 
thirty-six different languages of the East, and one 
bookcase of the library, I should say about eight by 
ten feet in size, was filled exclusively with translations, 
dictionaries, grammars and commentaries, in the many 
languages in which these great missionaries wrought. 
Such monumental faith and industry, on the part of 
these heroes, put to shame the generations that have 
succeeded them, but which have so feebly followed the 
path blazed for them. One other object of interest is 
to be seen at Serampore; namely, the shrine rebuilt 
from a part of an old temple to the memory of Henry 
Martyn, where he used to resort for retirement and 
prayer while he pondered the great problems of Indian 
Christianization. 

From Calcutta, we took the great Northwestern 
Overland for Benares. Benares, while majestic in its 
site and architecture, is a scene of horror to even the 
moralist. It is the Mecca, or Holy of Holies, of 
Hinduism, but for filth, superstition, the prevalence of 
fakirs and all that expresses the degradation of heathen 
fanaticism, it is without an equal. It is said that ten 
thousand pilgrims, from many parts, every morning 
pass down the broad stone steps, to bathe in the sacred 
waters of the Ganges. But these waters are putrid 
with the decomposing carcasses of the dead, that have 
been half burnt on the daily funeral pyres. I saw an 

* Carey, Marshman and Ward. 

172 



ON THE INDIAN CONTINENT 

old fakir sitting- in the dust and ashes, with matted hair 
several feet in length, which probably had not been 
combed or washed in forty years, the body so lean from 
fasting that it barely hung together, a framework of 
skin and bones, and yet he was alive. I saw another, 
stayed up by ropes of hay, between poles in the market- 
place, who they said had not sat down in forty years. 
The more severe forms of self-torture have long since 
been forbidden under penalty by the Government. I 
went to the "Golden Temple of Heaven," so called, with 
its famous "Well of Knowledge," into which the 
devotees were throwing, day after day, bouquets of 
flowers, and from this vile sink drawing water to drink. 
Standing about the court were the "sacred cattle," with 
dying devotees literally clinging to their tails in the 
death hour, as a substitute for Deity. The day I spent 
there was, I think, the most nerve-racking of my entire 
life. As I left the place, I think it could have been 
said of me, as was said of the melancholy Dante, pass- 
ing along the streets of Florence, "There goes the man 
that has been in hell." 

We drove out a few miles to old Sarnath, where 
are ancient shrines, and a temple of the religionists 
called "Jains." It is said that it was here that Prince 
Siddartha Gautama began his preaching, after he had 
his vision under the Bo tree. 

At Cawnpore we also had a nerve-racking day. 
This was the site of some of the horrible occurrences 
of the Indian Sepoy mutiny in 1858. Here the foreign 
colony of English residents and missionaries was belea- 
guered for days, by those who had risen against the 
Government. We were shown the embanked enclosure 
within which a few hundreds of people, under General 
Wheeler, sought to defend themselves against attack; 
also the great well, into which scores of wounded and 
dying victims were cast for burial. A fine memorial 
has been built by England over the spot, and on the 
walls of the beautiful English chapel near by are, 
inscribed in bronze, the names of many victims. An 
old man, one Major Lee, who, it was said, had been a 

173 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

witness to some of these atrocities, was our guide for 
the day, and the scenes he portrayed to us as we went 
from spot to spot were blood-curdling. 

We next went on to Agra. The first thing that 
impressed us was the great fortress, embracing some 
acres, with lofty crenelated walls and parapets. Pass- 
ing into the interior, we were shown remains of the 
gorgeous palaces of the Mohammedan princes, their 
audience halls, balconies and baths. For this is the 
heart of the "Dominions of the Moguls" — those great 
Mohammedan rulers that invaded India, and there built 
the most elaborate and costly marble palaces and tombs, 
temple-like in size and proportions. The tomb of Akbar 
the Great rose in crystal whiteness away on the city's 
edge. But the greatest existing monument still com- 
plete is the peerless Taj Mahal. We first saw it glint- 
ing in the wondrous soft Indian moonlight, on the 
railway, as we passed the evening before. In the morn- 
ing we drove to the Taj itself, about three miles from 
the town. It is situated within a magnificent Oriental 
garden on the banks of the Jumna River. There are 
three imposing marble entrances. Here we found the 
loveliest of cypresses, orange and lemon trees, and a 
great variety of shrubs and flowering plants. The view 
from the main entrance is over a long lagoon, enclosed 
in marble, from which jets of water play into the air. 
Just before the Taj itself is an elevated marble dais, or 
platform, from which pretty views in four directions 
are seen. The Taj itself, who shall describe? It is all 
of purest white marble, and the arches over doorways 
and the sides are richly set with jewels. Under the 
dome, and within a lace-like, chiseled screen, rest, side 
by side, the two sarcophagi of the Emperor Shah Jehan 
and that of his Empress Mumtaj, in devotion to whose 
memory the mausoleum was built. Its cost was fabu- 
lous; some say twenty million dollars, and that it was 
twenty years in building, with thousands of workmen 
employed on it, the design being that of a famous 
French architect. One of the most mystic, fascinating 
features is the exquisite, soaring dome. The echoes 

174 



ON THE INDIAN CONTINENT 

producible, when one with a clear voice can strike the 
thirds of an octave, are wonderful, both for richness 
of tone and for prolonged continuance. 

We went on to Bombay, being hurried on to the 
Telugu missionary conference. To reach it promptly, 
we took a train on over the Western Ghats Mountains. 
On arriving at Wadi Junction, in the morning, we were 
met by my former friends and proteges, Mr. and Mrs. 
John Newcomb, and their faithful servant, Jonah, and 
Mr. and Mrs. Maplesden, who, inasmuch as I could not 
go to the Deccan stations on this trip, had come to 
Wadi to spend a Sunday with us, and lay before me 
the needs of that part of the Telugu mission lying in 
and about Hyderabad, the great Mohammedan state. 
The station-master had kindly set apart on a siding a 
comfortable, partitioned railway carriage for our use. 
Here we visited, talked over the stations, prayed to- 
gether, ate, and slept for one night. On Monday 
morning we were again on our way to Nellore, where 
the conference was to be held. Dr. Downie met me at 
the station. The conference was already assembled, 
with a score or so of missionaries in attendance. Early 
the next morning Dr. Clough arrived from Ongole, and 
we had our first meeting since his visit to me in America, 
years before. It was to us both a joyful meeting. He 
knew, as others did not, along what peculiar lines, at 
first, through an old uncle of mine living in Burlington, 
Iowa, my interest in him, and through him in the 
Telugu mission, had developed, while to me he had 
been a peculiarly outstanding missionary. His first 
remark was: 

"Well, my dear fellow, we've got you here at last; 
now, get away if you can." In heart interest I never 
have got away and never shall. The mission has always 
appealed to me, on account of its history, on account 
of the manner in which the democratic principles char- 
acteristic of our denominational life fitted into the needs 
of the common peoples whose life Dr. Clough, from 
his quiet love power, so gripped, and on account of the 
depth of the appeal that came to me from this field in 

12 175 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

my student days, when I was first athrob with youthful 
and missionary passion. I had always felt the element 
of divineness in the history of the mission. The con- 
ference passed with many an interesting hour, and with 
rare fellowships. 

In Nellore there were other things besides the con- 
ference which drew out my interest. It was the 
mother station of our whole mission. It was the "Lone 
Star," the title which evoked Dr. S. F. Smith's immortal 
lyric, and which has gained an ever-growing importance 
in the Telugu firmament. There Jewett labored, and 
the Douglasses, and for many years the Downies have 
not only conserved the foundations, but built upon them 
nobly and well. It has to-day, locally, in an institutional 
way, more to show to the visitor than any other Telugu 
station. It has an intelligent, but not numerous, church. 
It has a good hospital, an important boys' high school 
with a noble brick building, a successful girls' school, 
and two commodious chapels for native worshipers in 
separate parts of Nellore. Nellore was the home of 
Kanakiah and his devoted wife Julia, and the blind, old 
saint, Lydia, with all of whom I had heart-warming 
converse. Julia was one of the company of five with 
the Jewetts on Prayer-meeting Hill, in the famous 
meeting of prayer for the Ongole field, twelve years 
before Dr. Clough was sent, which gave to the hill its 
name. 

I next went, in company with Dr. and Mrs. Boggs 
and Miss Dr. Cummings, to Ramapatam, to visit the 
theological seminary. 

We traveled by the literal Pullman cars; i. e., by 
carriages — in my case, by an American "democrat 
wagon," drawn by relays of coolies, changing every 
eight or ten miles. We traveled by night and day the 
distance of seventy-five or eighty miles. Arrived about 
midnight, I learned, as I went to my sleeping apart- 
ment, that an ugly, venomous snake, about four feet in 
length, had been found and killed in my bedchamber. 
However, after I had retired, securely tucked in by Dr. 
Boggs under a strong mosquito net, I slept without 

176 



ON THE INDIAN CONTINENT 

much nervousness. It was inspiring, next day, to see 
the large school of the Telugu prophets assembled, 
and to address them through the excellent interpreta- 
tion of Dr. Boggs, and I got the responses I wanted. 
Near Ramapatam runs the Buckingham Canal, of 
historic famine-relief fame. On a later visit, quite a 
party of us were taken for a "scow ride" on its placid 
waters. I thanked God for the providential purpose it 
served at a great crisis in the history of the mission, to 
get our spirit understood, through the masterly hand 
of Dr. Clough. 

From Ramapatam, I was taken by the genial and 
devoted Dr. Boggs, again by coolie ride, through a 
whole night, to Ongole. We arrived in the gray dawn, 
and Dr. Clough, who was on the lookout for us, met us 
at his bungalow entrance with a lantern, and with 
hearty salaams. After a few hours' rest in a proper 
bed and a good breakfast, Dr. Clough outlined his 
program to me, and we began the rounds of the 
several compounds and the village, not overlooking the 
little palam school. When Sunday came, we gathered 
in the large chapel, now replaced by the more commo- 
dious "Jewett Memorial." Over six hundred were in 
the Sunday school. In the evening, by arrangement, a 
company of the fathers of the town, native Brahmans 
and Mohammedans, embracing the judge of the court, 
the registrar of the district, the inspector of schools, 
the station-master, and two or three private bankers 
and attorneys, assembled in the front part of the chapel, 
while behind them, quite filling the room, were members 
of the native church. These gentlemen, all of good 
English education, wished to present their respects to 
the secretary from America, and also to pay their 
tribute to all that the American missionaries had done 
for them and their poor people in the long years gone. 
It was a touching and surprising line of utterances to 
me. For particulars of what they said (and had 
engrossed for me to take home), I must refer readers 
again to my "In Brightest Asia." Afterwards, I re- 
sponded out of a full heart to all they had said. At the 

177 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

adjournment of the meeting, I was again surprised to 
be approached by one of the chief men of the company, 
asking if I would preach to them on the next Sunday 
evening, if they would come again. I consented, all 
inexperienced as I was in dealing with the Brahman 
mind. The sermon preached is given in full in Chapter 
VI. of my "Method in Soul-winning." 

On the morning after, I received a visit from the 
registrar, Mr. Runganadam Pillay, desiring a private 
interview. We were given Dr. Clough' 3 inner parlor, 
and there the dear man, confessing he had not slept 
the night before, begged my prayers that his spiritual 
eyes might be opened, as were the eyes of the blind 
man on whose illumination I lad discoursed the night 
before. And after him cam? another Brahman, a 
high-school teacher, Mr. Venkateswaru Aiyar, telling 
a similar story. He acknowledged he was a convinced 
believer, but he shrank from a public baptism. He 
declared that, if he were baptized, his affianced wife, 
whom he sincerely loved, would be ruthlessly withheld 
from him, and., what was more, she would be reduced 
to the abjectness of Hindu widowhood. "What would 
you advise me to do in these circumstances?" That 
question was not easy to answer, and yet I dared not 
do less than refer him back to the principles on which 
the healed bli^l man acted, in his steps of faith, even 
though all earthly friends forsook him. We prayed 
together, and soon after we parted. I afterwards 
received earnest letters in America from both these 
men, and I have hopes of seeing them saved in the last 
day. And these are but examples of many thou- 
sands, as I believe on the testimony of the foremost 
missionaries in India, of convinced believers who, on 
account of the dreadful oppressions of the iniquitous 
caste system, are held back from open confession. Mr. 
Tiruvengada Pillay, the particular friend of Dr. Clough 
who gave me the invitation to preach on that Sunday 
night, not long after was seized with a fatal illness. He 
sent for Dr. Clough and acknowledged he had long 
been a secret Christian, and begged that the missionary 

178 



ON THE INDIAN CONTINENT 

would see that he had Christian burial, in a coffin such 
as the Christians generally had for their interment, and 
that his relatives should not be allowed to burn his 
body in heathen fashion. 

But with all Dr. Clough's influence, he could not 
carry out his friend's request. It is a common thing 
for many of the most intelligent Brahmans to say, 
"Well, I may not be able to profess Christianity in my 
generation, but my children will in theirs." 

I heard Dr. Pentecost tell in Boston of the outcome 
of his three weeks' meeting in Lahore, where he had 
preached, with his great earnestness, to a large society 
of the Ariya Somaj. He came to the closing meeting, 
and pronounced the benediction. As he lifted his 
hands, that portion of his audience, English and Chris- 
tian, that sat apart, on the sides and in the galleries of 
the room, reverently rose to receive it, while the large 
numbers of his Somaj friends sat stolid and motionless 
before him. The Doctor felt he could not endure this, 
and so, just as he was about to leave the platform, he 
checked himself, raised his hand in a deprecating 
manner, and asked his audience to pause. He then 
referred to the otherwise polite attitude of the gentle- 
men of the Somaj, and added that probably the import 
of the benediction was misunderstood. He then ex- 
plained that there w T as nothing magical about it; it 
contained no assumption of the power of the preacher 
to throw out grace to his hearers through his finger- 
tips; it was a simple prayer for the blessing of Him 
whom the Bible reveals as Father — and who didn't 
desire the blessing of such a heavenly Father? — and 
the blessing of his Son, Jesus Christ, as well as the 
blessing of the Holy Spirit, so diffused and immanent 
through all the universe, and yet personal — who didn't 
need them?" And then, with this explanation, he asked 
that he might again pray that benediction upon them 
all, and if any members of the Somaj really desired 
the blessing of such a God, he might now arise, as he 
repeated the prayer. As Dr. Pentecost raised his hands 
again, slowly one of the tall gentlemen — for they were 

179 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

all stalwart Sikhs, with great blue turbans on their 
heads, reminding one of the "sons of Anak" — in the 
front seat arose, then another and another, through the 
entire row, then others behind these rose, until prac- 
tically all were on their feet, and some with moistened 
eyes, before the God of heaven. 

On data which I have been repeatedly assured 
exists, the state of mind of these high-caste Hindus is 
that of a multitude, who, under gospel influence, have 
responded in their hearts to the claims of God in 
Christ, where missionaries have had the grace and tact 
in loving forms to present and live their gospel. So, 
although the great mass of our so-called converts, who 
have been baptized into our churches, are of the Pariah 
class, yet thousands of Sudras, and even Brahmans, are 
also among the believing, although their confession is 
so largely suppressed. An increasing number of the 
high-caste people are coming as the years pass, and the 
spirit of the missionaries becomes really known. The 
same thing is true in all Eastern lands. 

On my arrival in Ongole I found Dr. Clough quite 
worn-out, and, for a man of his buoyant and sanguine 
temperament, greatly depressed. He was nervously 
weak. He scarcely allowed himself to go out at all 
in the sun. He did most of his work in an inner room, 
and by the light of a German student-lamp. He said 
he had "grown tired of appealing to the Baptists of 
America for men." He thought the American Baptists 
had forgotten the Telugu mission, and he couldn't 
continue much longer. I demurred to much of this, 
and insisted that some of the home methods of the 
past needed improvement. I insisted the time was now 
auspicious for a new beginning, and if he were wise, he 
would, in his own lifetime, subdivide his immense field, 
and see proper successors installed in well-chosen cen- 
ters, and if he would come home with me, we would 
tour the country and the churches, and we would secure 
the help and the helpers needed. 

But the great missionary cheered up as the days 
passed, and his old enthusiasm returned. He took me 

180 



ON THE INDIAN CONTINENT 

to the caste-girls' school, where the be jeweled little 
ladies sang gospel songs, played their games, hung our 
necks with garlands and sprayed us with rose-water. 
He introduced me to his fine boys' high school, and the 
girls' schools, under two competent and accomplished 
Eurasian women, Miss Kelly and Miss Dessa, a type 
of workers far from appreciated by some missionaries. 
It seemed to me, in general, that one of Dr. Clough's 
outstanding elements of efficiency was that he did not 
expect too much of the first generation of converts, and 
these from the depressed classes. Moreover, he took 
pains to understand India as a composite product in the 
world's civilization. He was ever saying, "You must 
not only learn the language of the people in India, but 
you must also know the Hindu, his history and his 
ancestral institutions, and, failing to know these, one 
might as well go home." 

We had, on the Sunday I was in Ongole, a great 
gathering from the surrounding country, and, as usual, 
there were many asking for baptism. These were 
examined, and I was asked to administer. I am not 
sure that such a course is generally wise, even for the 
missionary, much less for an official from a far-away 
land, but in this case and one other I did it. On this 
Sunday there were ninety-seven candidates. The rite 
was administered in the cement baptistry under the 
large tamarind-tree in Dr. Clough's garden. The can- 
didates entered on one side and passed out on the other, 
almost in a continuous, but orderly, procession. The 
time consumed, as Mr. Waterman's watch assured him, 
was less than twenty minutes, and yet there was no 
hurrying; the formula was distinctly repeated in each 
instance, and I had no knowledge that the time taken 
was being observed. 

Dr. Clough also arranged, the second week I was 
there, for a tour into the heart of his country district, 
where a large part of his native church, then numbering 
twenty-three thousand members, lived. We were quite 
a caravan. We went in bullock coaches, with several 
assistants, native preachers, coolies, etc. We carried a 

181 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

large tenting outfit and provisions. India swarms with 
villages. The poor Pariahs live in mud and thatched 
huts, with a floor of hardened clay or cow manure, 
which is often put on like a paste and then whitewashed. 
It was heart-moving, as we passed through some of 
these, to see the people emerge and gather about the 
missionary. In some cases a woman with a child in 
her arms would fall down and clasp the knees of their 
beloved "Clough-dora," and the child would be bidden 
to look up into the face of the man who, in the time 
of famine and sickness, visited and administered reme- 
dies, even in times when cholera raged. 

One night, as we journeyed, Dr. Clough came to the 
coach in which I had been sleeping and roused me, to 
hear the pleadings of the head man of a village, who, 
with quite a company, had come miles to intercept the 
missionary, to beg for a teacher for his village, such as 
other villages had. There these weird pleaders stood, 
tinder the blaze of a torch, refusing this time to be denied, 
although these requests can not always be granted. 

"What shall I answer?" asked Dr. Clough of me. 
"Well, tell the American Baptists, when you get home, 
this is an almost every-day occurrence here." 

We came to a place called Darsi, and there pitched 
our tents. It was to be the place of rendezvous for one 
of those great quarterly camp-meetings, characteristic 
for long of this mission. I should say at least two 
thousand people came. There may have been a score 
of native preachers. Dr. Clough preached (as he could 
preach) in their vernacular. The natives preached. A 
large-bodied and great-souled Eurasian brother, Mr. 
Kiernan, led the singing. He has since died from 
leprosy. In the latter part of the first day candidates 
for baptism, the result of weeks and months of touring 
by native preachers, were examined. Great locks of 
hair, the "jutsu," as sacred to Hindu custom and super- 
stition as a queue to a Chinaman in days gone by, were 
sheared away — sure sign of a final break of the candi- 
date with his former heathenism. This went on for 
hours. And then the baptizing began, in the waters of 

182 



ON THE INDIAN CONTINENT 

a convenient pool. I myself baptized over one hundred 
in the early evening. During the next forenoon Dr. 
Waterman baptized about three hundred more. Among 
those that passed through my hands was one old woman 
with a hunchback. As I raised her from the water, 
she seemed to catch sight of something in the heavens 
invisible to me. Was it the Christ, or the Dove of the 
Jordan? No matter; it afforded evidence to me that 
the Lord was there, and in her heart, at least. I had 
had other experiences of difficulty in disenchanting 
the candidate. A company of proud Brahmans looked 
on, observing what occurred. I should have been glad 
to know their thoughts. Dr. Clough conversed freely 
with them, sometimes pausing in the midst of an ad- 
dress and giving them a humorous touch, that, at least, 
won their good will. 

We broke camp at midday, and Dr. Clough drove 
me to Donakonda to catch the train for Cumbum, 
where I was to visit the Newcombs. It was impossible 
to send the people away, so they were left to the native 
preachers, especially to old Solomon and Reuben, two 
of Dr. Clough's chief lieutenants. 

As we were hurrying on in our bullock coach, a 
Telugu of very striking appearance, tall and handsome, 
came across the plain and accosted Dr. Clough. He 
seized upon one of the posts of the canvas covering 
and, running along with us, began a very earnest 
conversation with the missionary. 

"What's that man saying, in such an earnest way, 
Doctor?" I inquired. "You forget that I don't under- 
stand Telugu." 

"Oh," he answered, "this man is asking to come to 
our school in Ongole the next quarter." 

"Of course, you'll take a man like that. Look at 
him; he has the head of a Roman senator." 

"No," said the Doctor, "we can't take him. He is 
probably fifty-five years old, and has a family of several 
children. We can't take him." 

"Well," I said, "let me question him, and you inter- 
pret." 

183 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

"Why do you wish to come to school?" 

"To learn to read God's Book," came the quick 
answer. 

"What does he know about God's Book?" I asked 
my friend. 

"Oh," said the Doctor, "he has heard the native 
preachers talk and preach about it." 

"Let me question him further. 'Why do you wish 
to learn to read God's Book ?' " The man looked up 
with an expression of surprise that I should think he 
didn't know. 

"I want food for my heart, sahib." Then I pleaded 
with Dr. Clough. "But he is awfully hungry; let him 
come." 

"Well, if you say so, I will." When the missionary 
told him of my request and his compliance, the sudden- 
ness with which he released his hold on our coach I 
shall ever recall, and, making his lowest "salaam, 
salaam, aiyah," he bounded away across the plains to 
his distant home, with the glad assurance that he might 
come to that school and learn for himself "to read God's 
Book" and "find food for his heart." Such are some 
of the forms of heart hunger that abound in poor India. 

On the way to Cumbum, I met a company of about 
forty native preachers at a station, in line beside the 
train, presenting their salaams. Such a bowing I had 
never before seen. The head man handed me a letter 
from Mr. Newcomb, explaining that these were a part 
of his force of field workers, that wished to see me 
here, as they could not come to Cumbum. They had 
all sorts of tokens of good will: packages of sugar, a 
few eggs, and other things. I felt like a commissary 
of an army squad, and I had a lot to give away to the 
neediest about me, but I must at least receive them; 
then I could dispose of them as I wished. 

Arrived at Cumbum, we were met by "Jonah" with 
a handsome bullock coach, to drive us to the mission 
house, three miles away. As we neared the compound, 
there came running a half-dozen or so of young men, 
students, drawing an American phaeton. This was to 

184 



ON THE INDIAN CONTINENT 

take us out of the bullock coach and to whirl us into 
the compound in state. I was in their esteem such a 
"dignitary." As we entered the compound I observed 
a great decorated arch over the gateway, and on it, in 
large letters, "Welcome to our secretary. God bless 
our secretary/' Then the whole compound was alight 
with skyrockets and Roman candles and a huge bonfire 
of palm leaves. There were swarms of native Chris- 
tians — about eight hundred of them — and among them 
forty converts of the sweeper caste, that had come in 
for baptism. I was too tired for this, and Dr. Water- 
man performed the ceremony. Many were the touching 
evidences afforded in the brief stay we made on that 
compound that things were alive. For example, as we 
alighted from the carriage at the mission house, Mrs. 
Newcomb came down the walk, with their oldest Telugu 
preacher, Abraham, leaning on her arm. As I held 
out my hand to him, he buried his face in it, and 
exclaimed in Telugu: "Lord, now lettest thou thy 
servant depart in peace." Of course, it was a great 
extravagance, to speak thus of the coming of any 
human into his presence. But there were volumes in 
what it indicated of Christian sentiment, living and 
tender, in the old believer. 

While we sat at the dinner-table he sat on the 
floor beside me and watched our faces and our 
speech, as we conversed on the great events that had 
come into the lives of the Newcombs since they both 
appeared at my dopr in Indianapolis a dozen years 
before, asking for Christian baptism. How little I then 
expected ever to see these dear people in charge of one 
of our most fruitful Telugu stations, embracing several 
thousand Christians, with a force of a hundred, more 
or less, native preachers under their direction. Within 
three months after my visit to them in 1891, Mr. N. and 
his coworkers received more than eighteen hundred new 
members on confession of faith into their churches on 
the Cumbum fields. 

This brother, though without college or seminary 
education, had had ten years of thorough discipline as 

185 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

a soldier under the Union Jack in India, and had won 
honors for executive force, good business habits, cour- 
age and upright manhood. 

None that have known Newcomb in the thirty years 
that have since elapsed will question the wisdom of the 
Executive Committee in appointing him, or that in all 
these years he has afforded uniform evidence of being 
wondrously taught and enabled by the Holy Spirit. The 
evening we were in the station there was a large chapel 
full of native Christians, whom I addressed with floods 
of emotion in my breast. The interpretation of my 
words seemed to be blessed in a way one who has not 
experienced the sensations in an Indian audience would 
have believed impossible. I came away from this last 
station visited in the Telugu mission more grateful 
than ever for any part in the great work, and my 
heart has been more wedded to the mission ever since. 

We took the train for Bombay, providentially meet- 
ing the great Methodist bishop, Thoburn, in a restau- 
rant at Raichur Junction, and we had some sweet 
fellowship together. Next morning we were in the 
great western port city of India, and shortly booked 
for London, via Brindisi, Naples, Rome and Paris, with 
the privilege of breaking the journey in Egypt for a 
brief detour to Palestine en route. 



186 



XXI 

IN EGYPT AND PALESTINE 

WE left India from Bombay, on a P. & O. steam- 
ship, for Egypt and Palestine. After a week's 
sail we reached Aden. The vessel stopped 
about three hours, allowing- us to land. We took a 
carriage out to some celebrated pools, said to date from 
King Solomon's time, but they were empty, and, 
indeed, all the surroundings seemed to us but a piece 
of desert like the Arabia of which Aden is a port city 
and an English possession, and we left the place with 
no regret. From here we entered the Red Sea and 
sailed to Suez. The heat was intense, due to prevail- 
ing hot winds from the desert sands on either side. 
There were two objects of interest that came into view. 
First, the Mt. Horeb range of mountains, embracing 
the peak of Sinai away to the eastward, and the 
other, the lofty, precipitous, red- wall Ras Ataka, run- 
ning for some miles on the west shore, and near the 
reputed place of crossing of the Israelites at the time 
of the Exodus. This long, bold height was doubtless 
one of the natural impediments to the escape of Israel 
when pursued by Pharaoh and his host. We passed 
this point on the Sabbath, and, being asked to preach 
by the second-cabin passengers with whom I sailed, I 
discoursed on Heb. 11:29: "By faith they passed 
through the Red Sea as by dry land: which the 
Egyptians essaying to do were drowned." I dwelt on 
the contrast between the Christian thought of an 
"exodus" and the physical alternative, "drowning." 

At Suez, Mr. Waterman and I left the steamer 
and took the train through the fertile plain of Goshen. 
The ancient style of irrigation from abounding wells 

187 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

was in use, and the fields were green with growing 
grain. Towards evening, as we neared Cairo, the 
outlines of the massive pyramids appeared. We tarried 
in Cairo but two or three days, of course taking in 
the short excursion to the pyramids and the Sphinx. 
These deeply impressed us with the great mystery of 
their antiquity, origin and meaning. We spent a half- 
day in the famous Bulaak museum. The mummified 
forms of some of the Pharaohs, with their queens, 
impressed us most. A visit to the famous El Azhar 
Mohammedan University, several of the finer mosques 
and the numerous bazaars, filled with goods of 
Oriental manufacture, was interesting. We had not 
time to take in the various forms of mission work, as 
we did twenty- four years afterwards, on a second visit 
to Cairo. 

We felt it unthinkable to be so near the Holy Land 
and not see at least Jerusalem, the Dead Sea and the 
Jordan ; so, taking steamer from Alexandria, we sailed 
for Jaffa. We passed through the experience of dis- 
embarking from our steamer by fairly dropping off 
the ship's landing-stairs into the arms of Cook & Co.'s 
boatmen, who safely rowed us through the narrow pas- 
sage, between dangerous rocks, and into the contracted 
landing-place. We were soon quartered in comfortable 
lodgings, and went out to visit the reputed house of 
Simon the tanner. On its roof, now the base of a light- 
house, we recalled the experience of the apostle Peter 
and his noted vision. We found on reaching Jaffa that 
our American friends, Stacey and a traveling com- 
panion whom we had barely met in Bombay, had been 
wrecked on an Austrian ship, but rescued by two of 
Cook's athletic boatmen, who swam from the shore to 
the wreck and finally got a cable attached. They and 
other passengers were safely brought off by the 
"breeches buoy." 

While in Jaffa, I made it a first duty to go, under 
the conduct of Mr. Rolla Floyd, an American tourist 
agent, to the little, foreign burial-place outside the 
town, to visit the grave of Rev. Amory Gale, whose 

188 



IN EGYPT AND PALESTINE 

widow and only son were prominent parishioners of 
mine, and I made this visit on their account as well as 
my own. He was the foremost Baptist home pioneer 
missionary in Minnesota. 

Our visit to Palestine was only partial, but the 
satisfaction of being in the land at all, and seeing, face 
to face, the sites on which Biblical incidents, including 
the incarnation itself, occurred, was very great. 

From Jaffa, we went by carriage to Jerusalem. The 
new railroad was built only for the first three or four 
miles and in the environs of Jaffa. We stepped 
aboard two of the first locomotives sent out by the 
Baldwin works, of Philadelphia. We stopped overnight 
at the village of the ancient Ramleh, on the plain of 
Sharon. The plain was one vast, waving wheatfield, 
reminding us of Minnesota. The journey from Ram- 
leh to Jerusalem was made mostly in a pouring rain, 
with an ascent of about twenty- four hundred feet in 
going a distance of about forty miles. The whole land 
appeared very desolate, and almost uninhabited, except 
for the occasional roving Bedouin and the Syrians, who 
inhabit a few insignificant villages. The blight of the 
Mohammedan Turk is on everything. If an inhabitant 
repairs the road, he will probably be taxed for it. 

Arrived at Jerusalem, we put up at a German hotel 
a little outside the Jaffa gate, and shortly after at the 
Johanniter Hospitz, inside the walls. There was here 
at least a Christian atmosphere, as it was under 
Lutheran auspices, although we met among the guests 
a German professor, who was full enough of his 
critical theories, and also of his lager beer. 

On the morning after our arrival we walked quite 
through the city, passing the market-place, filled with 
kneeling camels, donkeys and hucksterers; under the 
"Ecce Homo" arch ; along a part of the "Via Dolo- 
rosa" ; by the ancient Pool of Bethesda, w T ith its five 
porches, which had lately been excavated; out the 
St. Stephen's gate, and down a winding path across 
the valley of the Kidron, near the ancient Gethsemane, 
and up the slopes of Olivet to a modern tower built 

189 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

upon the summit. This we ascended, and from its fine 
outlook obtained the best panoramic view to be had. 
Away to the eastward arose the long, bold, purple line 
of the wall of Moab, with the reputed Mt. Nebo mark- 
ing its highest summit. Just short of it lay the glassy, 
silent Dead Sea and north of it the green valley of the 
Jordan. To the southward we espied some of the 
towers of Bethlehem; and beyond that, regions con- 
tiguous to Hebron; and away beyond, what is known 
as the Negebh, or Southland, which opens out into 
the great desert bounded beyond by the Horeb range. 
To the west and southwest lay what was once Philistia, 
and the blue Mediterranean flashing in the sunlight. To 
the northward, and not far away, rose Neby Samwil 
and the heights of Bethel and Ai, snow-covered on that 
February morning. Mt. Hermon, in clear weather, can 
be seen from this point, but we were not so favored. 
Nestling at our feet lay the Holy City, still walled, but 
with a much less space enclosed than formerly. On 
the southwestern corner was the Mosque of Omar, 
which covers the reputed rock on which Abraham 
offered his son Isaac. This was once the threshing- 
floor of Araunah. For a fee we were later permitted 
to enter the mosque and, with unsandaled feet, to stand 
before the rock, but on no account must we touch it. 
Before us also rose Mt. Zion, once the site of David's 
palace, and to the northeast the Damascus gate, and, 
just outside it, the hillock once called Golgotha, or 
"Place of a Skull," now believed to be the identical 
Calvary "where the dear Lord was crucified." 

The brook Kidron meanders down the valley be- 
tween us and the city walls. Just in the foreground 
the Garden of Gethsemane, with a chapel or two and 
the abodes of a few monks. The place is still marked 
by the unshapely trunks and the vast-spreading roots 
of a grove of olive-trees, survivors, at least, of those 
of two thousand years ago, amid which our Lord ago- 
nized and poured out his bloody sweat, while his intim- 
idated disciples slept, and from whence they ultimately 
fled. 

190 



IN EGYPT AND PALESTINE 

Still farther down the Kidron Valley stands the tomb 
of Absalom and the Pool of Siloam, on the edge of the 
vale of Jehoshaphat; and in a curve of the valley, 
around to the northward, is the vale of Hinnom, the 
Scripture symbol of Gehenna, where the world's sin 
waste, symbolically, is ever being consumed in perpet- 
ually burning fires. 

It has often been said that a visit to the Holy Land 
is like the discovery of a "fifth Gospel" ; and so I found 
it. The impression, that the Gospels are true, received 
in "the land" is irresistible, as I also found that what 
is to be seen in mission lands constitutes a "sixth 
Gospel." In the light of these two Gospels, historic 
Christianity stood forth to me as more axiomatic than 
mathematics. 

We made brief visits to Bethany and to Bethlehem. 
The latter is very pretty and impressive. On the road 
from Jerusalem we passed the tomb of Rachel. As we 
climbed up the ascending viaduct, through the gateway 
of the ancient town, we paused at the well from the 
waters of which David so longed to drink while in the 
cave of Adullam, and from which well the water was 
brought him by three of his mighty men. From the 
summit of the village — a sort of Acropolis — we again 
caught a view of the Dead Sea to the eastward, while 
lying between, and only about three miles distant, we 
had a lovely view of the green plain, where flocks are 
still being shepherded, and over which the angels 
sang on the Saviour's birthnight their "Glory to God 
in the highest, and on earth peace among men of good 
will." On the plain there now stands a fitting ancient 
tower called "Migdol-Eder," or "Tower of the Flock." 
Of course, the center of all our interest in Bethlehem 
was the cave, caravansary or khan, in which the Saviour 
was born. It is a spot in Palestine easily identified as 
authentic — as authentic as Plymouth Rock or Bunker 
Hill or Mt. Vernon. It is really a natural cave, often 
used in the East as a stable. A composite convent — 
Greek, Roman and Armenian — is now built over the 
spot, but in such a way as in nowise to close the wide 

13 191 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

opening in the rock, through which, by a few easy 
steps, we descend. A manger crib is there to be seen, 
and probably always has been, as some form of 
memorial — a simple, movable feeding-trough for cattle 
— similar to the one in which the infant Redeemer was 
laid. Sixteen silver lamps, always lighted and hung 
from the ceiling, illuminate an alcove, over which you 
read this inscription, in Latin : 

"Here, of the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ of Naza- 
reth was born.'' Your heart almost stops beating, at 
the realization that here actually occurred the fulfill- 
ment of the greatest prophecy in all history: 

"And thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, out of thee shall 
he come who shall shepherd my people Israel." 

I made a hurried trip to the Jordan Valley, accom- 
panied only by a fearless German dragoman, and one 
innocent-looking Bedouin Arab, named Joseph. This 
Arab represented the Bedouin tribe that has certain 
privileges in the Jordan valley, and his presence was 
evidence that, the tribe having received the customary 
"backsheesh," we were safe from molestation. We 
were all mounted on three splendid Arab horses, and 
the ease with which I made the trip in two days — ordi- 
narily requiring three — was a constant astonishment to 
my dragoman. He did not know that I was reared on 
an Illinois prairie, and had been inured, for a decade 
or more in youth, to almost daily horseback riding. 
We passed by the reputed spot where the good Samar- 
itan performed his gracious offices. We spent the 
night in Jericho, now having but a few pensions and 
hovels. We explored the foundations of the ancient 
city, still plainly traceable. We visited the gushing 
spring and pool of Elisha, and looked out at the tower- 
ing cliffs — Mt. Quarantana — which rear themselves 
loftily not far away. We spent the night in a Russian 
pension. The next morning, early, we mounted our 
horses and galloped away to the mouth of the Jordan. 
We scoured the plain like the Arabs, my dragoman 
being plainly disgusted because my always cool, gray 
mount was ever on the flanks of his ambitious bay 

192 



IN EGYPT AND PALESTINE 

stallion, who was often in a foam of perspiration and 
excitement because needlessly lashed by his rider, who 
knew many things better than he understood horse- 
flesh. It was, to me, distressing to see this awkward 
rider so torture his beautiful, but spirited, charger. We 
took a hurried plunge in the Dead Sea, the waters of 
which are clear as crystal, but exceedingly rank and 
smarty with various chemicals. No creature can live 
in these w r aters. The blight of Sodom's overthrow still 
seems to taint them. We next rode up to "the fords 
of the Jordan," a mile or two above. It was the spring 
tide, and the banks were overflowed: the waters were 
probably a fifth of a mile wide. At certain seasons of 
the year pilgrims from Russia can be seen, being 
immersed or immersing themselves, almost daily at 
this place. We shortly rode back to Jericho, and made 
our way up to Jerusalem. As we entered the great 
defile rising from the plain near Jericho, we peered 
through the opening of a chasm on the right, out of 
which issues the brook Cherith, with the waters of 
which the prophet Elijah refreshed himself until they, 
too, were clean dried up. Hovering within and above 
the chasm were black, cawing ravens, or crows, which 
from time immemorial have frequented such places. 
We could readily believe that such servitors might easily 
have been utilized by Providence to meet a prophet's 
need. 

On the way back we rode for miles alongside the 
newly built carriage road, being prepared for the 
expected visit of the German Kaiser, who would wish 
to go down to the Jordan valley. This was but one of 
the many signs in evidence that the authorities in the 
Turkish Empire were, even then, being brought under 
tutelage for some such realizations as Germany, at this 
writing — in 1917 — is striving for. At sunset we were 
again safely back in Jerusalem. Shortly thereafter we 
returned to Jaffa by carriage, and shipped for Port 
Said. From here we took steamer to Brindisi, Italy. 
The voyage was without incident, except that we had 
on board the Duke of Cambridge — near relative of 

193 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Queen Victoria — and party, who had been visiting 
Egypt. We stopped for a couple of days at Naples, 
visiting the remarkable museum, abounding with "finds" 
from Pompeii and Herculaneum; and we drove over to 
Puteoli, where Paul landed after his shipwreck, on the 
way to Rome. We came on to Rome for a couple of 
days, and made the most of our limited stop taking in the 
principal sights of that renowned metropolis. By using 
carriages constantly, we visited Saint Peter's; the Vati- 
can Museum, Gallery and Library; the churches of St. 
John Lateran, St. Paul's (without the gate), St. Peter's 
of the Chain, where is treasured Angelo's colossal 
statue of Moses, and a few others. We saw the 
pyramid of Caius Cestius, Pilate's staircase, on which, 
to this day, kneeling creatures of superstition are still 
doing the penance which Luther repudiated. We 
visited the foreign cemetery and found the graves of 
some dear to our American friends. Of course, the 
Forum, with all its mighty ruins ; the Colosseum, and 
the ancient Pantheon, dating from before Christ, were 
visited, together with a few galleries of art, containing 
wonderful statuary. We also visited Dr. George B. 
Taylor and daughter, of our American Southern Bap- 
tist Society, and the mission of Dr. Wall, of England. 
From Rome we came on to Paris, whither I had wired 
to my friend of a few years before, Madame Rostan, 
so that when I arrived late in the evening she gave me 
a motherly welcome. She escorted me to my apart- 
ments, and had supper waiting on the table and the 
kettle singing on the hearth fire. I was made to feel 
warmly at home, and, after my long round of Asia, 
Egypt, Palestine and Italy, it seemed as if I were again 
amid my own domestic surroundings. My wife and I 
had been accommodated together in that same friendly 
pension only three years before. 

Through previous correspondence it had also been 
arranged that as many of our French missionaries as 
possible should be brought together for a few days* 
conference in Paris. Accordingly, we assembled in the 
Rue de Lille Chapel, and had high converse respecting 

194 



IN EGYPT AND PALESTINE 

what was then a most promising outlook for our Bap- 
tist work in France. Among those present were 
Brethren Dey, Cadot, Andru, Saillens, the Vincents — 
father and two sons — Long, and others whose names 
are not now recalled. There was then apparent deep 
harmony, not always characterizing the mission, and all 
seemed eager and full of faith for the Baptist outlook 
in France. 

From Paris we came on, via Calais and Dover, to 
London. My tarrying there was but for a few days. 
However, during this time I was permitted to renew 
and deepen previous friendships. As usual, I went 
to the Baptist Mission Headquarters on Furnival Street. 
I also visited, at Harley House, Dr. and Mrs. Guinness, 
who received me with greatest cordiality, especially as 
on my recent visit to China I had seen and had delight- 
ful fellowship with their gifted and devoted daughter, 
Geraldine, and many other workers of the China Inland 
Mission who had been students with them. I addressed 
their school, giving some stirring accounts of my 
experiences on many Eastern fields, especially among 
the Telugus of India. I also had the pleasure of 
reciting some of these experiences to Mr. Spurgeon, in 
his vestry at the Tabernacle after the service I attended 
there. But I was soon booked on the "Teutonic" for 
passage from Liverpool to New York, and after a very 
stormy voyage in April I was brought to my desired 
haven, having had no illness on the entire round of 
visitation, and having lost but one meal from seasick- 
ness, and that on the worst of all seas, the Atlantic. 



195 



XXII 

HOME MOVEMENTS AND METHODS 

ON arrival home from this mission tour, I first 
reported to the Society in Boston. I was received 
with exceeding warmth by Dr. Murdock and all 
others at the rooms, and went over with them some of 
the features of my tour which had impressed me most, 
indicating the points at which I thought more emphasis 
should be placed. From Boston I hastened home to my 
family in Minneapolis. During my brief stay, I gave 
to the people of my old charge the benefit of the inspi- 
rations I had received. The Anniversaries shortly came 
on, to be held in Cincinnati. The attendance that year 
was very large, so that Pike's Opera-house was required 
for the accommodation of the crowds that came. Dr. 
Geo. W. Northrup, of Chicago, and my former inspir- 
ing teacher, was in the chair at the Anniversary of the 
Union. There was a general spirit of large expectancy 
for the report I was expected to give of my travels in 
the missions. The greater part of an afternoon session 
was set apart for the purpose. Besides, Dr. Clough, 
who had followed me home, was also to be present at 
the meeting and speak briefly, as his then depleted 
strength would allow. I need not describe my line of 
thought nor the impression produced, but I think I may 
say in all modesty that the concrete form in which I set 
forth typical situations in Japan, China, Burma, Assam 
and the Telugu missions gave so realistic a sense of 
what our missionaries are really doing that many of 
my hearers said they "felt as if they had been with me 
on the journey." When, in the light of my portrayal of 
the Telugu mission, Dr. Clough rose to speak, the 
enthusiasm was at white heat, and it was some minutes 

196 



HOME MOVEMENTS AND METHODS 

before the cheering so subsided that he could speak.* 
When it was announced that he came home to help 
me get twenty-five new missionary families for the 
Telugu mission alone, and fifty thousand dollars extra 
with which to set them up, the people seemed ready. 
Before Dr. Clough sat down, one brother, the late Dr. 
W. H. Doane, of Cincinnati, offered a thousand dollars ; 
others came forward, although no effort was then 
made to raise subscriptions. In a few months Dr. 
Clough had got his fifty thousand dollars, and then the 
Board authorized him to raise another fifty thousand, 
which he readily obtained. 

To my surprise, I was urged by the authorities to 
occupy the evening of that same day, to resume my 
account of the missions, using lantern slides which Mr. 
Merriam had brought on from Boston. So, selecting 
such as I could use, I did my best to get the audience, 
which numbered over three thousand people, to see the 
situations abroad as I saw them. This meeting was 
really the formal inauguration of a movement to raise 
a million dollars in honor of a hundred years' mission 
work since Carey. Probably no better send-off could 
we have had than that Anniversary, as a whole. Dr. 
Northrup himself had given one of the greatest address- 
es of his life, and the intelligence and conscience of the 
denomination were, by God's grace, greatly enlivened. 
Invitations came in from all sides for visits and 
addresses from Dr. Clough and myself. 

All this led me to formulate a policy for securing 
the sympathetic help of the denomination. The ele- 
ments in this policy were these : 

First: To arrange for a series of "prayer confer- 
ences" at strategic points throughout the country. 

Second: To summon to participation in these meet- 
ings as many of our foremost denominational leaders 
as could be secured in a given locality, and also to 
bring on several of our representative missionaries home 
on furlough. 

* See Dr. Clough's own account of his address in his recently pub- 
lished autobiography, edited by Mrs. Clough. (Macmillans.) 

197 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Third: To secure from competent brethren, whether 
heads of seminaries, professors in colleges or pastors, 
the most pungent and pithy expositions of Biblical 
teaching setting forth the missionary character of 
Christianity. 

Fourth: Then to bring forward a missionary — one 
or more — who, in concrete terms, would show how the 
Biblical principle expounded had been illustrated and 
corroborated in the history of his own mission. He 
was to spend no time in lecturing the brethren. He 
was to serve, primarily, as a witness. 

Fifth: Then, when all minds were rekindled by 
Biblical truth and warmed by the example of mission- 
ary passion, the last part of each session was to be 
given to prayer, always volunteered, to the Lord of the 
harvest for more laborers. 

Experience had shown that since the Anniversaries 
of so many societies had been crowded into one con- 
vention, there was insufficient time at our Anniversary 
meetings, as such, for any Biblical expositions, for ade- 
quate testimony on the part of returned missionaries 
respecting the workings of the gospel on pagan minds — 
the very thing the people of our churches most wish 
to hear. And, above all, the crowded Anniversaries 
afforded no time for continued and corporate prayer. 
The so-called "devotional service" at the beginning of a 
session became formal; people straggled in, mostly late, 
and there was little concentration or psychological 
unity. A prayer service at the end of a session, when 
minds are tense and sympathies aglow, proved to be 
a far better thing. 

The result of meetings like this is the development 
of spontaneity. I recall repeated occasions, after such 
sessions as I have described, when candidates volun- 
teered, and people came to me with inquiries, "What 
can I do to help?" Besides, offerings of money, little 
and large, were always forthcoming, as the natural 
sequence of such meetings. Moreover, this is the 
divine order: "While I was musing the fire burned." 
All the abstract arguments possible respecting missions 

198 



HOME MOVEMENTS AND METHODS 

are relatively nil for inspirational purposes, compared 
with the method I have outlined. An ounce of the 
concrete is worth a ton of abstraction. 

The type of conference I have been describing was 
not something accidentally hit upon, nor one chosen for 
mere prudential reasons. It was the outcome of an 
emergence from the crisis which occurred in my earlier 
ministry, before referred to. The incidental fruits of 
this in my own soul, determining the type of my 
preaching and affecting the life of my parish, were so 
marked that, during my Indiana pastorate, certain 
ministerial brethren in the State had urged upon me 
the holding of an informal retreat. Any pastors who 
really wished to come were quite welcome, but none 
were urged to attend. About a dozen pastors, from 
Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, South Bend, Lafayette, Peru, 
Huntington, and lesser places, came together with Dr. 
H. L. Stetson in his church in Logansport. We began 
in the forenoon, with a simple experience meeting, in 
which, by request, I led off in the account of the 
manner in which the great blessing of a wholly renewed 
spiritual life had come to me. I called it a simple 
return to my "first love," involving a deepened confi- 
dence in the finality for spiritual purposes of the word 
of God, when sanely interpreted as a whole, in harmony 
with itself. It involved, also, an avowal of an absolute 
confidence in the universality of the divine providence 
as the Bible teaches it, as affecting every surrendered 
and believing life. The brethren at Logansport listened 
to my narration with the greatest sympathy, and began 
to ask prayers for themselves in their varied circum- 
stances. 

The result was that the following hours of the 
meeting, continuing through the next day, were mostly 
given to prayer. One evening the church was filled, 
and there was profound interest. At the conclusion of 
a sermon by me, Rev. G. H. Elgin, a brilliant young 
pastor in Indianapolis and editor of the Indiana Baptist, 
rose, and said he wanted to come forward to the front 
seat, like any penitent seeker for Christ, to ask for 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

special prayer, and he invited any who felt as he did 
to join him. The entire row of front seats was filled 
with these broken-hearted ministers upon their knees 
for one another, and the whole audience was hushed 
with awe. 

But what of all this? Those pastors returned to 
their home churches and made new beginnings. In 
some of their churches marked revivals occurred. Dr. 
Elgin later told me that three months thereafter he had 
recorded in the columns of the Indiana Baptist reports 
of more than three thousand conversions and baptisms 
within the limits of the State. Similar conferences 
were held in Franklin, where the college is situated; 
at Mitchell, where within a few weeks ninety new 
members were added to a long backslidden and worldly 
church; while in Lafayette, Fort Wayne, South Bend, 
in Logansport itself, and other places, marked spiritual 
refreshings were enjoyed. 

When, two and a half years afterwards, I found 
myself located as pastor in St. Paul, Minnesota, now 
quite restored to health, I was invited by brother 
pastors — Dr. W. T. Chase, H. C. Woods, F. T. Gates, 
T. G. Field, and others — to hold similar conferences at 
eligible points. This I did, in the Twin Cities, in 
Rochester, Owatonna, St. Cloud, Stillwater, and else- 
where, various brethren assisting. Everywhere there 
was pronounced blessing. 

When, therefore, I found myself charged with the 
responsibilities of conducting missionary campaigns 
widely through the country, and sought divine guid- 
ance, I recurred to the signal blessings on the aforesaid 
"prayer conferences" ; and it seemed plain to me that, 
as the missionary enterprise is pre-eminently a spiritual 
and sacrificial undertaking, this "prayer conference" 
idea, which called for renewed spiritual life, was likely 
to be greatly blessed. And so I started out on that 
line. The first conference called was in the Prospect 
Avenue Church, Buffalo — Dr. E. E. Chivers, pastor. 
Both pastor and church threw themselves into it with 
great earnestness, and we held a two or three days' 

200 



HOME MOVEMENTS AND METHODS 

meeting. As participants to lead our thoughts, I invited 
the strongest men in the denomination that I could 
reach. Among those who participated were Drs. A. J. 
Gordon, Henry E. Robins, John Humpstone, of Brook- 
lyn; P. S. Moxom, A. H. Burlingham, Robert G. Sey- 
mour, W. P. Hellings and L. A. Crandall. We also 
had Dr. John E. Clough and several other missionaries. 
About two hundred and fifty messengers from outside 
Buffalo were in attendance. The meeting was felt to 
be entirely unique, and especially the Biblical, exposi- 
tional and prayer factors. Dr. Chivers himself wrote 
up an account of it for the Examiner, and others for 
the Standard and the Journal and Messenger. It was 
not long until from all parts of the country came invi- 
tations for similar conferences. The next one held 
was in Des Moines, Iowa, and the attendance and inter- 
est, as it was held in Dr. Clough's own State, were 
even greater than at the one in Buffalo. Again strong 
men were brought to the front. Dr. Lemuel Moss, 
then of Minneapolis, and pastors from Denver, Keokuk, 
Davenport, Dubuque, Omaha, St. Paul, in large 
numbers, came. No church in the town could hold 
the people, especially on the evening when Dr. Clough 
spoke; and so we secured the large opera-house. Sev- 
eral young pastors and their wives and several single 
women foremost in those meetings shortly after volun- 
teered, and were appointed for service abroad. Among 
these were F. P. and Mrs. Haggard, Mr. and Mrs. 
S. A. Perrine, Mr. and Mrs. E. L. Harris, A. L. Bain, 
W. F. Gray, Miss Lolo Daniels, and others whose 
names I do not now recall. Dr. Witter, secretary for 
that State and Nebraska, told me that sixteen new 
missionaries were recruited from that meeting. Dr. 
Clough was already in touch with several of the 
men he wanted: and as the conferences were held 
in succession, all the men asked for came forward, 
and were appointed. I had been importuned, on the 
way out via California the year before, to come soon 
after my return from the mission lands and make a 
tour of the Pacific coast. The committee in Boston 

201 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

was favorable to the suggestion. Accordingly, the next 
spring after my return, I went and held a series of 
these prayer conferences, from place to place, through 
Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, Santa 
Ana, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Fresno, Santa Cruz, 
San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, Port- 
land, Tacoma, Seattle, Victoria and Vancouver. It was 
a great series. It brought out the strongest men on the 
coast. And I think everywhere blessing was left be- 
hind. Indeed, it was with me a primary conviction, 
if we could hold meetings of the right sort they would 
prove fertilizing to every spiritual, philanthropic and 
missionary interest: to none more than to the respective 
State conventions embraced, and to all local interests. 
I either projected or shared in four or five different 
trips up and down the Pacific coast. 

Emphasis was never laid on any mere society, as 
such, that was behind such meetings, but, rather, upon 
the inner genius and spirit of New Testament Chris- 
tianity. If by second intention any or all societies were 
helped, well and good; but the whole kingdom, on its 
intrinsic and divine principles, and these concretely 
illustrated, was the main thing emphasized. Other such 
meetings were held in Boston, Providence, Hartford, 
New Haven, Norwich, Bridgeport, New York, Brook- 
lyn, Newark, Trenton, Jersey City, Freehold, Philadel- 
phia, Washington, Pittsburgh, Allegheny, Dayton, Cin- 
cinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Chicago, Milwaukee, 
Elgin, St. Louis, Lawrence, Atchison, Lincoln and 
Omaha. These conferences continued almost annually, 
in some form or other, throughout the eighteen years 
of my secretarial life. On occasions the veteran Dr. 
Henry G. Weston, and my spiritual father, would go 
with me, as he did in four great meetings at least — to 
Boston, Providence, Dayton and Elgin — not to speak of 
various participations with me in his own Philadelphia. 
Who that ever heard him on a favorite line, "God's 
Elect a Missionary Body," can forget the searching, and 
yet persuasive, tenderness of his presentation? At 
times some of the secretaries of the several societies 

202 



HOME MOVEMENTS AND METHODS 

would join me in a winter series of these conferences; 
e. g.j Dr. H. L. Morehouse, in New York, Brooklyn 
or Cincinnati; Dr. H. C. Woods, who accompanied me 
on my second tour along the whole Pacific coast; and 
betimes State convention or district secretaries — Drs. 
Rairden, Proper or Dunn, of Maine; Mr. Dobbins, of 
Philadelphia, or "Uncle Boston" Smith; Drs. A. J. 
Gordon, of Boston, and John A. Broadus, of the South- 
ern Seminary at Louisville — assisted me on some of 
these occasions; so, also, did Dr. E. B. Hulbert, of 
Chicago ; Pres. George E. Merrill and Professors Burn- 
ham and Greene, of Colgate, and a long list of mission- 
aries home on furlough. 

I made two memorable tours across the continent, 
accompanying parties of missionaries sailing by the 
Pacific for Japan, China or the Philippines, consuming 
a fortnight or more on each trip, holding meetings on 
the way out at points like Chicago, La Crosse, St. Paul, 
Minneapolis, Fargo, Spokane, Seattle, Tacoma, Port- 
land, Eugene, Albany, Grant's Pass, Sacramento, Oak- 
land, San Jose and San Francisco. On one trip taken 
over the Atchison, Topeka & Sante Fe line, we held 
such meetings at St. Louis, Kansas City, Albuquerque, 
Fresno, and a half-dozen other points in California. 

Some of these meetings were almost Pentecostal in 
interest and power, and were everywhere attended by 
crowds, to whom world evangelization from that time 
on became another thing. 

And here let me put on record my warm apprecia- 
tion of the great and manifold help rendered by a 
body of most able and devoted district secretaries who 
served the great cause, home as well as foreign, for 
many years. These were as follows : Drs. W. S. 
McKenzie and W. E. Witter, in New England; Drs. 
A. H. Burlingham, E. E. Olivers, C. L. Rhodes, Geo. H. 
Brigham and O. O. Fletcher, in the State of New York ; 
Drs. R. M. Luther, Robert G. Seymour and Frank S. 
Dobbins, in Pennsylvania ; Rev. T. G. Field, in Ohio ; 
Drs. S. M. Stimson and J. S. Boyden, in Indiana and 
Michigan; Drs. C. F. Tolman and E. W. Lounsbury, in 

203 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Illinois; Dr. Henry Williams (succeeding to Dr. 
Witter), in Iowa; Dr. Frank Peterson, in Minnesota; 
Drs. I. N. Clark and Manly J. Breaker, in Missouri, 
and Drs. James Sunderland and A. W. Rider, on the 
Pacific Coast. These were all efficient and extremely 
faithful men, laborious, self-denying, and they eagerly 
lent every help within their power in their respective 
districts to render my administration efficient; and they 
planned, in the main, numerous conferences in which 
I participated. Some of them had been eminent in 
pastoral service, some had seen years of service on the 
mission field and were in themselves primary centers of 
missionary inspiration and power. 



204 



XXIII 
OUTSTANDING EPISODES 

IN the light of what I have said, it will be inferred 
that in the pursuance of my general plan of holding, 

widely, Bible and prayer conferences, the tenor of 
my public course was, in the main, fertilized by two 
things; first, by my new habit of first-hand Bible study, 
and, secondly, by the first-hand contact with the missions 
themselves, the details of which the churches never tire 
of hearing. As to the first of these influences, I gave 
three consecutive years to the study of my Greek Tes- 
tament, together with a Harper's "Englishman's Greek 
Concordance," until I had gone through, examining, 
word by word, the entire New Testament. This was 
greatly stimulated by the simultaneous use of Rother- 
ham's New Testament, critically emphasized. 

In the spring of 1907 I was officially sent as a dele- 
gate to the Morrison Conference, in Shanghai, China. 
My route was via Honolulu, Yokohama, Shanghai and 
Hongkong, and back to Shanghai in time for the con- 
ference, taking in Swatow and Foochow. 

At Honolulu, on the outward voyage from San 
Francisco, which I took in company with eight or ten 
representative Americans and a much larger number 
of the leading residents of Honolulu, we had, in the 
city just named, a very cordial reception given us by 
leading citizens. We were met at the steamer by 
delegations with automobiles and carriages, which took 
us the rounds of sights to be seen, including, of course, 
the famous Pali precipice, with its unrivaled views of 
many-colored waters, shoals, reefs, etc. We were 
shown the large Hawaiian church, the Polynesian 
museum, the Y. M. C. A., the large Union Church 

205 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

building, and were very handsomely dined at a mis- 
sionary rendezvous. Among the things that interested 
me most was a little contact with the Rev. Hiram 
Bingham and wife (the sister of Titus Coan), and he 
son of the original Hiram Bingham, who led the first 
party of missionaries from Boston to the islands, in 
1820. This Hiram Bingham, second, had been fifty 
years in the Gilbert Islands, where he had translated 
the entire Scriptures into the vernacular of the people, 
and compiled a valuable dictionary. He was an 
impressive personage, with his stalwart figure and lofty 
brow, reminding me of the distinguished Horace Bush- 
nell, whom I once heard lecture in Chicago. 

I made, in passing, but a brief stop in Yokohama, as 
it was deemed important that I should go on as direct 
as possible to Hongkong, Canton and Swatow, in time 
to return up the coast for the conference at Shanghai. 

Through the generosity of a few friends, it had 
been made possible for my niece, also, Dr. Catherine 
L. Mabie,* a medical missionary home on furlough from 
the Congo, to take this trip to China with me, an inci- 
dent which greatly added to my enjoyment and com- 
fort. Besides, I was anxious that on the trip she 
should see as much as possible of our Chinese and 
Japanese missions. Hence, we made sure of South 
China first. We took in representative forms of the 
work of several boards in Canton, including the South- 
ern Baptist Mission, the large Baptist mission press 
and schools, the great Presbyterian hospital, the hospital 
of Dr. Mary Foster — an institution for women — the 
Canton Christian College, and several of the foremost 
temples and characteristic features of the native city. 

From Canton, after a brief visit to the grave of 
Morrison at Macao, and a few days in Hongkong, we 
took steamer for Swatow. There we became the 
guests of Dr. and Mrs. William Ashmore, Jr., and 
Dr. and Mrs. S. B. Partridge. We took in the schools 
and other interesting enterprises there; also those in 

* Daughter of Dr. John S. Mabie, of California. 
206 



OUTSTANDING EPISODES 



the Presbyterian mission across the bay; and visited 
Kityang and Chaoyang — the Speichers in the former 
place and the Grosbecks in the latter — together with the 
lamented physician, Dr. A. M. Worley (afterwards 
drowned in the Swatow Bay, to the great loss of our 
mission). 

From Swatow we took a slow coast steamer for 
Foochow, en route to Shanghai. We found Foochow 
full of interest. It is the seat of very important work, 
as carried on b)^ the American Congregational and 
Methodist Boards, in particular. The schools are of 
a high order and the equipment exceptionally good, and 
there were very able workers in charge. I was here 
much pleased to meet a Chinese teacher, Rev. Moses 
Ding, whom I had known somewhat in America. 

At the Morrison Centenary Conference in Shanghai 
I was invited to preach in the Christian Chapel on one 
of the two Sundays embraced by the conference. I 
spoke on "The Transfiguration Errand of the Church," 
meaning the missionary undertaking, which is nothing 
short of the attempt of the Spirit, through the church, 
morally, to transfigure mankind. There were hundreds 
of missionaries present, and the place that morning 
was a radiant mount. The chief thing of value in the 
sermon was the Scripture implications for mankind's 
transfiguration it contained. 

The Shanghai conference was a decennial meeting. 
It was attended by about twelve hundred delegates, 
from China and elsewhere. It was a highly representa- 
tive meeting, so far as missionaries in China were con- 
cerned, but it seemed to me, and to many others, a great 
pity that the Chinese Christians themselves had no 
formal representation, and that but a very few of them 
attended the meetings, in which leading questions were 
discussed. There were, however, two or three mass- 
meetings in their behalf. Drs. Arthur Smith and J. 
Campbell Gibson presided, alternately, at the sessions. 
The studied reports of the various committees, that had 
been long before appointed, were able and compre- 
hensive. Perhaps the one theme that occupied the 

14 207 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

largest share of attention was the subject of Christian 
union. On the central matter of spiritual unity there 
was but one opinion. However, probably nothing was 
accomplished in the way of committal to ecclesiastical 
conformity, except that various types of Methodists, 
Presbyterians, Baptists and Anglicans easily united for 
certain purposes, common to them all. 

Apropos of this matter of Christian unity, an oppor- 
tunity occurred of demonstrating what I long since 
discovered, that a real catholic-spirited Baptist can often 
serve better than any one else to mediate practical 
differences between the several denominations, and, at 
the same time, show himself to be nearest to other 
Christians of any denomination. 

During the first morning of the Shanghai confer- 
ence the "Commission," previously appointed to present 
the "Basis of Doctrinal Agreement," reported. In the 
report was the sentence, "Resolved, That we accept the 
Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and the 
Nicene Creed, as the sufficient expression of the facts 
of the Christian faith." 

The moment the matter was before the conference 
amendment after amendment was offered. The Angli- 
cans were insistent that at least one historic creed 
should be incorporated with the Scriptures and prac- 
tically co-ordinate with them as determinative of the 
elements in the confession of faith. Baptists, Dis- 
ciples, and some of the China Inland missionaries, were 
equally opposed to the acknowledgment of any authority 
besides the Scriptures. The forenoon was consumed in 
an attempt to reach an agreement, and the hour came 
for the noon adjournment, with pronounced disagree- 
ments. 

The moment we adjourned, I stepped over to my 
friend, Bishop Roots, of Hankow, and inquired, "Would 
you be willing, on the part of Episcopalians, to elim- 
inate from the resolution the word 'sufficient,' and insert 
instead the phrase 'substantially expresses' ?" 

"Certainly," said he. 

"Then, let me get together a few Baptist and 

208 



OUTSTANDING EPISODES 



Disciple delegates for a conference, and that change 
can be made." 

I called in Dr. R. S. Graves, Dr. R. T. Bryan, our 
own Northern representative, and a few Disciples, and 
stated to them my proposal. At first they all protested 
against "recognizing any creedal statement whatever." 
But I soon persuaded them that, in effect, every Bap- 
tist denomination at home that organized a church, or 
formally recognized such a church, did so on the basis 
of certain "articles of faith," and that any Baptist or 
Disciple who preached a sermon or wrote a tract for 
the Chinese virtually took a creedal position, and we 
Baptists jeopardized nothing serious by admitting, for 
the sake of easing the position of Anglicans in a union 
conference, that even the Nicene Confession (following 
the Scriptures in the statement) "substantially" expressed 
the facts of the Christian faith. All finally agreed to 
this. 

The amendment, coming from a most unexpected 
quarter, when presented was immediately seconded on 
all sides, the question called for, and an absolutely 
unanimous vote secured. All were at once on their 
feet singing the Doxology, and thereafter the confer- 
ence proceeded on its course with complete harmony. 

Probably there were a few high Anglicans who 
never forgave the unknown author of the amendment, 
who could see a difference between the word "suffi- 
ciently" and the word "substantially." Under this sub 
rosa influence, the "non-essential" factor was eliminated 
and all parties were happy. 

On one of the evenings early in the conference 
there was a large representative assemblage, at which 
delegates from the societies, present in large numbers, 
were introduced. When I was brought forward the 
following incident occurred. In my remarks I had 
said that I represented the American Society, which 
had its rise with Adoniram Judson. I brought assur- 
ances of the Christian love and good will of twenty 
millions of Protestant American Christians toward 
China. I concluded by referring to the proposed return 

209 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

of one-half of the indemnity fund of twenty- four mil- 
lion dollars, which was allotted to our country after 
the Boxer troubles. To indicate the solid basis which 
I thought existed for the hope it would be done, I 
referred to a personal interview which I and two 
others, friends of China, not long before had been 
favored to have with the late Secretary Hay, in his 
official chambers in Washington. I described to my 
hearers, which included many English-speaking Chi- 
nese, the high indignation which Secretary Hay ex- 
pressed to us, that other powers in Europe were 
unwilling to relinquish a dollar of their claims ; and, 
also, that their claims should all be paid in gold. 

There may have been some degree of indiscretion 
in relating the incident in the form I did. However, 
at the close of the meeting Hon. Y. C. Tong, a highly 
cultivated gentleman, educated in Hartford, Connecticut, 
years ago, head of the Chinese Imperial Telegraph 
System, sought me out. He was the representative of 
His Excellency, Tuan Fong, who held sway over the 
three great Liang provinces. Tong had given an 
address of rare eloquence at the opening of the meet- 
ing. I overheard him inquiring for the gentleman who 
had spoken of the proposed return of the American 
indemnity to China. I stepped forward, and we 
exchanged cards. 

Tong remarked: "You deeply touched my heart 
to-night. You spoke like a man who loved our people." 

I replied: "I certainly do, and there are millions in 
America who do." 

He replied: "I believe that," then added: "But you 
do not really believe that the United States will carry 
out your great secretary's recommendation! Other 
nations do not treat us that way." 

I answered: "I think they will, but we shall talk 
of that when and where we can have a quieter oppor- 
tunity." 

He asked me to call on him the next day, and 
appointed an hour. Accordingly, taking Dr. Timothy 
Richard with me, I called at his office, and we went 

210 



OUTSTANDING EPISODES 



over the whole matter. That interview led to a friend- 
ship which has continued to this day, and it also brought 
me into touch with other dignitaries in China, to which 
I shall refer later. 

After the Shanghai conference, on my return from 
Hankow, through the mediation of our United States 
Minister, I called on His Excellency, Tuan Fong, in his 
Yamen in Nanking. Mr. Y. C. Tong, just referred to, 
and his close friend, had written him, preparing the 
way, and I had a most delightful interview. Besides, I 
was present in New York on the great occasion when 
our American Mission Boards gave, at the Hotel Wal- 
dorf, a reception to himself and one other high official 
from China. When, later, these gentlemen, with their 
retinue, visited our mission rooms in Boston, and Dr. 
Barbour gave them an address of welcome, I presided 
at the meeting. All of these incidents, as well as my 
features, Tuan Fong easily recalled. He also kindly 
presented me with a lithograph likeness of himself, and 
a scroll which contained a "squeeze" from a celebrated 
tablet in Egypt. He gave me a Chinese name, and 
wrote it, together with his own, on the edge of the 
scroll, which I brought home with me. It was a great 
loss to the new China that this highly advanced and 
competent man should have been seized and summarily 
executed because he was a Manchu, at the time of the 
revolution. 

In connection with the Morrison Centenary in 
Shanghai, a deputation of Americans informally chosen, 
excepting myself and Dr. Eubank, representing our 
Missionary Society, went out to China to observe con- 
ditions. Among these were Pres. S. W. Woodward, 
of our Foreign Society, and Col. E. H. Haskell, 
president of the Home Mission Society, and perhaps a 
dozen others, including several pastors. We made a 
rapid visitation of Canton, Shanghai, Ningpo, Hankow 
and Hanyang, and returned with a variety of impres- 
sions. The presidents of the two societies above men- 
tioned, with marked generosity served at the Astor 
House a complimentary dinner to the twelve hundred 

211 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

missionary delegates to the conference. It was an 
occasion of marked interest, and reflected great credit 
on the large-heartedness of our two American brethren. 

Yet another occasion similar to this is worthy to 
be recalled; namely, the sumptuous Chinese dinner pro- 
vided by the Commercial Press of Shanghai, the largest 
native publishing-house in all China, founded a few- 
years since by five proteges of the Presbyterian Press, 
but which has since grown to great proportions, with 
branch houses in six or eight of the leading cities of 
China. 

Dr. A. J. Gordon died in 1895. He had long been 
a member of our Executive Committee, for years its 
chairman, and probably the most whole-hearted, un- 
questioned friend of Foreign Missions in the American 
pastorate. Moreover, his great impressiveness in pub- 
lic speech made him pre-eminent among us. I was 
privileged to be close to him for many years. I was 
a delegate with him at the first Ecumenical Conference 
in London, shared with him several McAll meetings 
in Paris, following the London meeting, and he being 
chairman of our Executive Committee, and I one of 
the secretaries, I was naturally called upon to preach in 
his vacant, draped pulpit on the Sunday after he 
passed away, previous to his funeral. I think it was 
the most stricken congregation I ever saw, and never 
did I more shrink from a public function. But there 
was no escape. I took for my theme the entreaty of 
Elisha to the prophet Elijah, on the day of the latter 's 
translation, that "a double portion" of his spirit might 
fall upon Elisha. I dwelt particularly on Elijah's 
reply : 

"And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing: never- 
theless if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it 
shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so." 

My point was the necessity of an insight born of 
the Spirit of God after some form of death and resur- 
rection on Elisha's part, if he was so to qualify, as 
Elijah's successor, as to see him transfigured from a 
physical to a spiritual being, and virtually identified as 

212 



OUTSTANDING EPISODES 



ranking with the chariot and horsemen of fire. Coming 
thus near, Elisha would perceive that Elijah, under 
the symbol of chariot and horsemen, which, also, he 
became, was the real defense of Israel; and that 
Elisha himself must be such a defense. So, we, if we 
would gain insight and qualification to succeed to the 
enduement of our spiritual superiors, must come into 
closer union with their processes of spiritual trans- 
formation, even at the cost of life itself. 

I was also asked by the family to preside at the 
funeral, a couple of days later, and also to pay my 
tribute to the saintly man that had passed. Other 
speakers were Rev. Joseph Cook, Dr. Arthur T. Pier- 
son and Miss Frances E. Willard. The Clarendon 
Street Church was filled to overflowing, even to the 
curbstones of the street. The occasion, as a whole, 
was simply august, entirely apart from any living 
individual's part in it. But I have always esteemed it 
one of the chief honors of my life to have been per- 
mitted to stand so close to this man of God, in many 
respects the most gifted, seraphic and devout man 
that has been known in the annals of American Bap- 
tists. In his time, he held very advanced views respect- 
ing the spiritual life, divine healing and the pre- 
millennial coming of our Lord. But these views always 
seemed so natural to him, his exposition of them was 
so eloquent, and so much Scripture did he focus on 
them, that few persons opposed him in the open. He 
was a man of truly prophetic mold, and of rare divine 
insight. No wonder that, after the natural struggle 
of so strong a personality against relinquishing the 
grasp on life in his last illness, he passed away with 
the triumphant shout, "Victory!" upon his lips. To 
this day, after the lapse of twenty years, the memory 
and impress of his personality still dominate the whole 
atmosphere of Clarendon Street Church. 

Sometimes we had debts ; such debts — deficits * in 

*A deficit in a given year's account, in the case of a benevolent so- 
ciety, whose permanent funds are large and ever increasing, does not, as 
in the case of an individual or a mere business, portend danger of in- 
solvency. 

213 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

the yearly account, we ought to say — are sure to accrue 
in any foreign missionary society that does its work 
on a high principle. This is no plea for a reckless, 
debt-making habit, but deficits are inevitable, for these 
reasons: first, because any executive board that becomes 
sympathetic with its heroic missionaries on the firing- 
line is bound to spend each year all that the situation, 
on its surface, calls for; and generally a little more, 
because the exigencies of so growing a work are of 
such a nature as no mere human judgment can foresee: 
for example, the sickness and return home of mission- 
aries, the prevalence of a sudden famine, or an inter- 
national war that creates unforeseen situations. Any 
mission board that is wise will incur the moral risks 
involved rather than see the work radically jeopardized. 
In the next place, foreign mission work, after all, 
rests with serious weight on only a minimum part of 
any denomination, ill developed as the church is. And 
if a mission board allows itself to be held back and 
embarrassed by this contingent of its supposed con- 
stituency, it will never do its work as it ought to. And 
the missionary executives are called, if divinely called 
at all, to an aggressive leadership in this matter. They 
must, therefore, be prepared to hold and to exercise a 
strong faith policy, or they should give over their 
responsibilities to those who will. To spend only such 
funds as their constituents have put in their hands in 
advance may be worldly prudence, but it is not Chris- 
tian faith, on the basis of the great commission and its 
accompanying divine promise, and if a too sight-walking 
policy exists, the work in hand is sure to weaken. 

Historically, all the great mission boards in Europe 
and America have had, do have, and will have, pretty 
frequent deficits. These very deficits have often 
proved the moral means to awaken an always more or 
less apathetic church. Even banks, great corporations 
and nations, as at present, are obliged to borrow money 
on a colossal scale, and so their debit account is often 
but the measure of the enormous ideal values and 
risks they feel compelled to stand for. 

214 



OUTSTANDING EPISODES 



Of course, a prudent board will take every pains to 
keep out of debt when possible, and they will feel 
grave concern lest the deficit in any one year should 
be too large. 

In the course of my connection with the Missionary 
Union there were deficits. We started with one of 
nearly seventy thousand dollars during the year in 
which I was chosen secretary. The next year we raised 
over one million dollars, so that, after meeting all 
contingencies and considerable advance work, we had 
a credit balance of twenty-five thousand dollars. Then 
what happened? People began to say, "Oh, the Foreign 
Society has more money than it needs !" Some partisans 
— shall I say it? — made use of this incident to our 
disadvantage. Then, an international disturbance came 
on, and the prejudices of the weak among us awoke 
to criticism of work being done outside our own bor- 
ders. And, of course, we had a deficit. 

One year — in 1907-8 — this deficit amounted to two 
hundred and four thousand dollars, and the Home 
Mission Society had one of one hundred and eighty 
thousand dollars. They have always prospered when 
we prospered and suffered when we were short — a 
consideration which ought forever to make impossible 
any jealousy in the two arms of service. I confess I 
was much depressed by this situation, but I am clear 
that it was from no fault of our committee's admin- 
istration. The Telugu field alone, the year before, had 
been reinforced with more than twenty new families. 
The West and Central China missions had also been 
much strengthened. Indeed, the work begun at Han- 
yang, the most strategic and central position in China, 
was itself an outstanding advance movement, in which 
the best informed friends of the Missionary Union felt 
great satisfaction. But we had contracted debt. 

At length, after a night of uncommon pressure, I 
awoke one morning with this thought: If I could get 
Mr. Rockefeller to make a conditional offer, such as he 
was then in the habit of making to other interests, and 
if I could enlist Dr. Morehouse, of the Home Mission 

215 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Board, to co-operate, we together could easily secure 
the remaining portion of the two great debts. I took 
the first train for New York and unburdened my heart 
to my long-time friend, Rev. F. T. Gates, who then 
handled applications made to Mr. Rockefeller. Mr. 
Gates was favorable to my proposal. I then went to 
Dr. Morehouse and divulged my plans. He seconded 
them warmly. We instituted a series of parlor confer- 
ences, to enter upon as undemonstrative a search as 
possible for money. Mr. Rockefeller, meanwhile, had 
looked over our figures and generously said that we 
needed a little more than I had asked for, and he was 
prepared to give two hundred and fifty thousand dol- 
lars, provided we would raise the balance to cover the 
gross amount of indebtedness. 

We next called on Mrs. Rockefeller, to ask if she 
would open her house for a parlor conference. She 
cheerfully acquiesced and the meeting was held, with 
perhaps sixty people present. At that meeting assur- 
ances were given for about eighty thousand dollars. 
Meetings followed in Boston, Brooklyn, Newark, Buf- 
falo, Rochester, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Dayton, 
and several other places. Finally, when the footings 
were made up and audited by a careful committee, we 
found we had the money for the deficits, and a surplus 
of twenty-five thousand dollars to the good. The 
denomination was happy, the missions rejoiced, and we 
confidently believed we were started on a new and pros- 
perous course. 

To Mr. Rockefeller's credit be it said that from 
that day on, year by year, he annually increased his 
contributions, until for some years they have amounted 
to about two hundred thousand dollars annually, each, 
to the Foreign and Home Mission Societies. The 
joint effort which Dr. Morehouse and I made bound 
our hearts together in an uncommon and tender friend- 
ship, which strongly abides to this day. In all this 
endeavor I was greatly abetted and encouraged by Hon. 
Robert O. Fuller, of Boston. He himself subscribed 
ten thousand dollars, and obtained several other pledges 

216 



OUTSTANDING EPISODES 



of from three to five thousand. He also personally 
went with me to several cities, and lent great aid to the 
success of the parlor conferences, some of which he 
planned throughout. To the end of his life, Mr. Fuller 
was my fast personal friend, and a staunch believer 
in the form of moral and inspirational dynamic, which 
he believed, through God, my policies were bringing to 
the cause. And back of Mr. Fuller himself was the 
whole-hearted sympathy of his gifted and devoted wife t 
who he always said was his loftiest inspiration, and 
who also, in recent years, has been a cordial patron of 
my mission lectureship. 



217 



XXIV 
NORTHFIELD DAYS 

SOON after I removed from the West to New- 
England, in 1891, I located my family summer 
home at East Northfield. I did this, partly for 
health reasons, and partly because the several summer 
conferences that had sprung up under Mr. Moody's 
magnetic influence afforded high missionary inspira- 
tions and a rare opportunity for coming into annual 
touch with prospective candidates for missionary ser- 
vice. Besides, I had been for years in close sympathy 
with Mr. Moody's high spiritual ideals. 

I came into possession of a small tract of pictur- 
esque, wooded land just on the edge of the town, con- 
sidered worthless except for the little timber and 
firewood there was on it. It was, however, in part, on 
the slopes of a glen, well watered with springs and a 
pretty mountain stream. Rough as the place originally 
was, I saw it could in time be made very attractive. 
Of course, I could spend only my vacations on it, but, 
as I had several children in school, I was persuaded 
they could most profitably spend their vacations in 
Northfield with us, avail themselves of the conferences, 
and also become helpful in working out the possibilities 
of a comfortable home — the first one I ever owned in 
my own right. From 1892 till now it has been our 
vacation rendezvous. Meanwhile, it has served to keep 
up my health to the working-point, which is a con- 
sideration. We built a Swiss chalet, and named our 
place "Roeburn," in honor of my wife's maiden name 
and of the brook (the Scotch of which is "burn"). We 
also inscribed across the front gable, in Swiss fashion 
and German text, the device, "God's Providence is 

218 



s 



XXIV 
NORTHFJELD DAYS 

cm the West to New 

located my family summer 

eld. I did this, partly for £ 

rause the several summers 

mg up under Mr. Moody's x 

high missionary inspira- i 

y for coming into annual % 

candidates for missionary ser- n 

■n for years in close sympathy ■ 

; itual ideals. g 

of a small tract of pictur- h 

esqm on the edge of the town, con- + 

t for the little timber and H 
firewood there was on it. It was, however, in part, on 5 
the slopes of a glen, well watered with springs and I 
pretty mountain stream. Rough as the place originally " 
was, I saw it could in time be made very attractive. J 
Of course, I could spend only my vacations on it, but, 
as I had several children in school, I was persuaded 
they could most profitably spend their vacations in 
Northfield with us, avail themselves of the conferences, 
and also become helpful in working out the possibilities 
of a comfortable home — the first one I ever owned in 
my own right. From 1892 till now it has been our 
ition rendezvous. Meanwhile, it has served to keep 
my health to the working-point, which is a a 
m. We built a Swiss chalet, and named our 
ivoeburn," in honor of my wife's maiden name 
• he brook (the Scotch of which is "burn"). V 
d across the front gable, in Swiss fashi 
in text, the device, "God's Providence 

218 



NORTHFIELD DAYS 



Mine Inheritance." This latter suggestion came, of 
course, from the historic old house in Chester, Eng- 
land. My peculiar attachment to Mr. Moody drew me 
to the place. This attachment began in my student days 
in Chicago. It grew with my observations of his 
marked activities in Christian Commission service during 
our Civil War, and gained further strength from the 
Tabernacle meetings in Boston in 1877, in which I 
worked with him, and from his peerless standing in 
the realm of the most genuine and effective evangelism. 

With the rise of Mr. Moody's conferences, I was 
impressed that the spirit, and some of the methods 
effective in them, were the very things needed to supply 
more dynamic for such foreign mission propagandism 
as I was expected to promote. 

Northfield was also the birthplace, in 1886, of the 
Student Volunteer Movement, which, in recent years, 
has figured so largely over the world. At this historic 
meeting, addresses had been given, I think particularly 
by Drs. Pierson and Ashmore, of such searching and 
thrilling power that many earnest students in attend- 
ance were moved to offer themselves personally for 
definite forms of work that would hasten the evangeli- 
zation of the world. Among those who since have 
risen to special prominence are Robert P. Wilder, John 
R. Mott, Robert E. Speer, G. Sherwood Eddy and 
Fletcher Brockman. 

As home secretary of our Baptist Foreign Mission 
Society, I found Northfield all I had expected as a 
convenient place for meeting large numbers of intend- 
ing foreign missionaries. Having my home here during 
the periods of the annual conferences, therefore, greatly 
facilitated my purposes. 

As these conferences progressed, pains were taken 
by the management to bring on considerable numbers 
of Japanese, Chinese and some Indian young men from 
our various colleges in which they were students. On 
occasion, we had groups of these on our lawn or 
verandah for friendly converse. Having visited their 
home lands, I easily gained their confidences, and was 

219 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

most glad to reciprocate in my home, attentions I had 
received in their respective countries. I have several 
times found occasion to describe to groups of Chinese 
my interview with the late Secretary Hay, in Wash- 
ington, in which he expressed himself so vigorously 
respecting his wish to have returned to China one-half 
of the indemnity fund of twenty- four million dollars 
levied on China for supposed encroachment upon our 
American interests in the Boxer uprising of 1900. Such 
an account has always awakened, on the part of the 
Chinese, an enhanced appreciation of American friend- 
ship. 

During Mr. Moody's lifetime, he always made much 
of "Missionary Day" at the August meetings. Besides, 
he took pains to seek out foremost missionary men with 
platform power. Usually each year, also, we had on 
our lawn missionary receptions, at which many were 
introduced and called on for more extended remarks 
than there was time for in the general meetings. Once 
we had seventy-five or more of these worthies, with 
several missionary officials from various societies, pres- 
ent as our guests, some of whom I shall later mention. 

The bond of Christian fellowship thus established 
led to a most interesting and fraternal contact after- 
wards, on many a mission field, as my wife and I 
toured distant lands. So Northfield proved to be a 
sort of clearing-house of missionary interests through- 
out the earth. 

Moreover, on these sacred Northfield hills all forms 
of Christian and mission work in the home lands, also, 
were ever coming before us. Who can ever forget 
Egerton Young's accounts of his rare experiences among 
the Hudson Bay Indians? He made us hear the very 
click of the rifle, and smell the odors of the campfire, 
and taste the cooking venison. How we were thrilled 
by S. H. Hadley's accounts of conversion of the tramps 
in Water Street Mission, and Mrs. Whittemore's narra- 
tives of the effect of gospel persuasion on the suppo- 
sedly hopeless in her Rescue Mission. How we felt 
shamed by Edward A. Steiner's portrayal of the ignored 

220 



NORTHFIELD DAYS 



trials of aliens on our soil, and made sensible of our 
apathy towards the "down and outs," as pictured to 
us by Melvin Trotter, of Grand Rapids. And how Dr. 
Bernardo awakened our admiration for his work for 
orphans in London. The fact is, that any one who 
could set forth the power of God's grace to reach and 
recover the needy or the fallen was always welcome 
where D. L. Moody controlled the platform. 

The second season we spent there, after the August 
conference was over, Mr. Moody asked about a dozen 
of us who had lingered after the meetings to meet him 
on the grounds back of Weston Hall. After calling on 
me to lead in prayer, Mr. Moody said he already knew 
where there was ten thousand dollars available, and in 
a few minutes thirty thousand dollars more was added 
to it, for the new auditorium. 

Since I became a denizen of Northfield I have seen 
several of the most spacious and handsome buildings 
come into being for the seminary, such as the Domestic 
Science Hall, Sage Chapel and Music Hall, Gould Hall, 
the Gymnasium and Kenarden Hall, and at Mt. Hermon 
the large dining-hall, chapel, swimming-pool, Crossley 
Hall (rebuilt) and Overtoun Hall. Besides, the hotel 
has been rebuilt and greatly enlarged, which, in itself, 
constitutes one of the most genial and popular hostelries 
in New England. 

I also set a peculiar value upon Northfield influences 
for the sake of my own household. I have esteemed 
our frequent and often annual contact with such souls 
other than Mr. Moody's as of enormous worth. I name 
some of the outstanding ones: Ira D. Sankey, A. J. 
Gordon, Theodore Cuyler, Francis G. Patten, Henry 
Van Dyke, H. G. Weston, D. W. Whittle, Geo. F. 
Needham, F. B. Meyer, J. Stuart Holden, C. I. Sco- 
field, Andrew Murray, A. C. Dixon, John R. Mott, 
Robert E. Speer, J. Wilbur Chapman, C. M. Alexander, 
Geo. C. Stebbins, the Erdmans (father and son), 
Prebendary Webb-Peploe, Bishop Thoburn, G. Campbell 
Morgan, Chas. E. Jefferson, Geo. F. Pentecost, J. 
H. Jowett, Sherwood Eddy, Jacob Chamberlain, John 

221 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

G. Paton, Arthur T. Pierson, Margaret Sangster, 
Helen Barrett Montgomery, Ellen Stone, Fanny Crosby, 
L. S. Chafer, and many others. 

We have had, either as missionary guests in our 
home or residing in an adjacent cottage, Dr. and Mrs. 
Ashmore, Dr. and Mrs. Clough, Wm. H. Hascall and 
wife, W. L. Ferguson and family, D. D. Downie and 
family, the Stenger brothers, Henry Richards, A. F. 
Groesbeck and wife, John Newcomb and wife, Wm. 
Axling and wife, C. H. Davenport and family, W. F. 
Beaman and family, Harry Openshaw and wife, F. P. 
Haggard and family, Dr. W. B. Boggs and family, Dr. 
W. H. Leslie and family, Mrs. J. Heinrichs and family, 
Geo. J. Geis and family, Marcus Mason and family, 
Henry Topping and family, Mrs. C. W. Foreman and 
family, Mrs. H. W. Peabody, Dr. Catherine Mabie, Mr. 
and Mrs. F. Howard Taylor, Dr. and Mrs. John Scud- 
der and their daughter (Dr. Ida), Dr. R. A. Hume and 
Mrs. E. R. Hume. 

The influence indirectly imparted to my family from 
such personages alone, apart from their public address- 
es, has more than justified the planting of my vacation 
home in beautiful Northfield, the gem of the Connecti- 
cut valley. If there is anything in saintly associations 
and in high-minded table talk, it surely has been richly 
tried out with us. I envy similar privileges for every 
family on earth, often worth more for the formation 
of character than a whole university course. 

One of the delightful parts of our Northfield life 
was the coming of Dr. Henry G. Weston to the place. 
As a man of uncommonly conservative temper, it was 
hard at first to get him there. Singularly enough, he 
had never come into acquaintance with Mr. Moody. 
He finally appeared one summer as my guest, and 
partly as a health measure. He was a bit shy of possi- 
ble teachings in Northfield. He had been suffering 
much from sleeplessness. On arrival at our house, we 
assigned him a chamber on the east side, over against 
the glen, down which every evening the soft, piney 
breezes were wont to descend after sunset. He found 

222 



NORTHFIELD DAYS 



the atmosphere so fresh, the babbling brook so musical, 
and the pine odors so soporific, that he began to sleep 
like a child, and to the end of his life, in the hot 
seasons, he would sigh for that chamber. However, 
when Mr. Moody had once discovered him, he began 
to provide for his entertainment more conveniently near 
the auditorium, and so absorbed was Mr. Moody in 
his Biblical expositions that he and his family came 
near monopolizing him. They named a room for him 
in the hospital building at Mt. Hermon, and frequently 
would say to me: "Where have you kept this great 
man all his life? If you have any more like him, 
bring them on." 

Dr. Weston was sent for to participate in the 
services at Mr. D. L. Moody's funeral. Among other 
things said by Dr. Weston on that occasion was, that 
he "would rather be the man lying in that casket than 
any other man who had lived in the last century." 

Of course, what lent a touching interest to our own 
enjoyment of Dr. Weston's days in Northfield was the 
fact that, ever since I was led to Christ as an eleven- 
year-old boy under his preaching, I and my wife, also, 
had lived our lives under the sweet aegis of his uncom- 
mon influence and character. 

For nine successive years Dr. Weston was a regular 
attendant and speaker at Northfield; and during the 
last year of his life, when he was too feeble to attend, 
Mr. W. R. Moody, who had presided since the passing 
of his father, requested that the conference send a tele- 
gram and greeting to the prophetic spirit, whom he 
characterized as "the archbishop of Northfield." 

The frequent coming of F. B. Meyer, with his rare 
Biblical messages respecting the spiritual life, were of 
the foremost significance, not only for Northfield, but 
for the entire country, which he repeatedly and widely 
toured. 

I can not dismiss the special influences joyfully 
experienced at Northfield without referring to the com- 
ing of Dr. G. Campbell Morgan upon the scene. The 
day he first appeared he had run down from Canada, 

15 223 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

which he had been visiting, for a look in upon the 
scene of Mr. Moody's later activities and interests. 1 
remember how curiously I eyed the then young Bir- 
mingham pastor, as he sat upon the platform, little 
imagining what potentialities for our conferences were 
lodged in that tall, nervous and rather ungainly figure. 
Mr. Moody, however, invited him to preach next morn- 
ing. He spoke on "The Carpenter of Nazareth." Mr. 
Moody immediately after invited him to return to 
Northfield the next season to give a course of addresses. 
This was like Moody. He was always a rare discoverer 
of men with a message; and he surely found one in 
Campbell Morgan. The next year he came, and with 
him another uncommon personality and religious teach- 
er, Rev. G. H. C. McGregor. The two men met each 
other for the first time on the ship coming over. 
Although McGregor was avowedly a Keswick man, 
Morgan had never been near the place, and was rather 
shy of some of the features of the cult, which undoubt- 
edly it is. But the two men studied the same book, 
and had undergone similar experiences, and they both 
had the passion to communicate them to others. 

After the passing of Mr. Moody, Dr. Morgan be- 
came, in my opinion, a real godsend to all the North- 
field interests. He decidedly broadened and deepened 
the lines of thought. While standing for the most 
spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures and of life, he 
was of the most balanced type. He based everything 
in his version of renewed spiritual experiences upon 
the potentialities lodged in regeneration, and never 
gave any interpretations that could minister to spiritual 
pride, Pharisaism, or such "Christian perfection" as 
soon sinks to a new form of legalism. He was, and is, 
the most normal evangelical of the preachers of the 
Spurgeon-Maclaren-Jowett type. Beyond any I have 
ever known, he preaches to the whole man — intellect, 
emotion, conscience and will. And he has the rare 
power to dramatize in thought everything he preaches; 
and yet he is never the mere actor. Gifted with humor, 
he never descends to the trifler or buffoon. His rever- 

224 



NORTHFIELD DAYS 



ence is profound, his gift in prayer extraordinary. As a 
Scripture expositor, in which realm he has achieved the 
most signal successes everywhere, he is a master. 
When, indeed, we consider that before attempting the 
public exposition of any book of the Bible he is in the 
habit of sitting down alone and reading the book 
through at a sitting several times — at least fifty times, 
on the average — we are not surprised. He reads and 
rereads, until an analysis of the book cleaves open to 
him like a ripe chestnut burr. 

Among the gospel preachers of our time, I can not 
but class him among the foremost and most impressive. 
His poetic sense, his imagery, his fidelity to the thought 
of divine revelation, his literary finish, his elocutionary 
power, and his personal embodiment of Bible messages, 
are all phenomenal God be thanked for the gift to 
His church of G. Campbell Morgan. 



225 



XXV 
LITERARY PRODUCTS 

DURING my tour of the missions I used my pen 
rather diligently in writing letters home, so that, 
between my family and the denominational papers, 
we preserved a pretty complete record of my travels 
and impressions. 

I had no idea at the time of making a book on the 
subject, but by the time I reached home I found the 
letters had excited so much interest that I felt encour- 
aged to gather them into a volume. I entitled my 
volume "In Brightest Asia." It would have been easy, 
indeed, to depict the shadows in heathen lands that are 
dark enough. It was my conviction, however, that in 
quite too many books on the subject, and in missionary 
addresses, descriptions of the dark side of heathendom 
are not sufficiently inspiring. If the gospel is winning 
its way, those phases of the work which reveal it de- 
serve an exhibit. Psychologically, also, there is far 
more inspiration derived from positive presentation of 
values than there is in any amount of negation. People 
need to see the bright side of missionary life and 
experience. Temperamentally, also, I was built for that. 

I illustrated my volume freely with photographs I had 
brought home with me. The book was well received, 
about six thousand copies being sold. Although the 
work is now out of print, yet copies of it can be con- 
sulted, probably, in any of our seminary libraries or in 
the library at the mission rooms. 

My second venture in book-making was in the 
writing of a small volume entitled "Method in Soul- 
winning," published by Revell. It is, in the main, a 
record of interesting cases of conversion of people who, 

226 



LITERARY PRODUCTS 



in rather unconventional ways, have been led to Christ 
in the course of my pastoral work and travels. It was 
intended as a help and an incitement to young pastors 
and missionaries to a correct method of dealing with 
souls supposedly difficult to reach. The book contained 
only seven chapters. The reception given to the work 
was assuring. One layman in this country, interested 
in students for the ministry, bought a thousand copies 
and distributed them widely. He also sent numbers of 
copies to our missionaries. The reception given to the 
book in England was also marked. 

In the discussion embraced in the treatise, attention is 
given largely to the subjective factor in man's quest of 
salvation, although in the second chapter I did deal 
with the objective fact which constitutes the message; 
viz., that mediatorship of God in Christ which offers to 
all men a new type of moral probation — requiring the 
exercise of a faith which is most vital. About the 
time of the issue of this book the half-truth embraced 
in subjectivism, under the form of Ritschlianism, was 
having a wide vogue. Feeling as I did the peril in this, 
and having been led to a deeper conviction of the 
objectiveness of the redeeming work of God in Christ 
than I earlier had, I felt the necessity of emphasizing 
the matter as I did in a later book. 

I profoundly believe that, for the purpose of main- 
taining for one's self a true missionary conviction, the 
objective atonement, as well as its complementary truth, 
a subjective experience of the vicarious principle in 
the soul, is essential ; and for purposes of producing a 
missionary conscience in others, the objective atone- 
ment, properly presented, is the foundation of every- 
thing. 

The reason for my publishing the several books 
referred to in this chapter was primarily missionary. 

The possible considerations to mission work are 
various. There is the need of the heathen world, 
always distressing enough. There is the opportunity 
for adventure in distant lands, colored more or less by 
picturesque features: these specially appeal to youth; 

227 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

there is the appeal to denominational pride, ever aiming 
to keep up the high standard of heroic service set by 
the denominational missionary pioneer; there is the 
sense of the heroic in certain men who, through an 
accomplished career, have been put on a pedestal, that 
leads some to entertain similar hopes for themselves. 
Moreover, there is always operative in this realm the 
morbid impulse, on the part of certain disappointed 
souls, to seek some form of self-immolation. 

But all these motives are inadequate. Probably with 
most candidates the motives are mixed. In the search- 
ing inquiries which our Bible studies on the subject 
were provoking, I felt the necessity of going to the 
bottom of the matter. Besides, the line of effort I was 
pursuing contemplated, not merely the securing of more 
candidates for service abroad, or the replenishment of 
a foreign missionary treasury, but the edification of 
Christian workers in every possible line of service, at 
home as well as abroad. 

In other words, a general and widespread revival 
of spiritual life was needed. And if this was to be 
secured, the fundamental relation of the soul to Christ 
was involved. This threw me back on a fresh study of 
the atonement. For it is the nature of one's redeemed 
relation to God in Christ that determines his relations 
to his fellow-men. But the sense of these relations 
needs to be better brought into consciousness. 

In 1899 there assembled in Tremont Temple, Boston, 
one of the decennial meetings of the World Congress 
of the Congregationalist body. It brought the fore- 
most men of that communion from England and from 
other parts. Among the Englishmen were Professor 
Fairbairn, Principal Cave, P. T. Forsyth, Sylvester 
Home, and others of their best thinkers and workers. 
The whole meeting was upon a hisrh level of evangelical 
thought. I have been told on good authority that a 
quiet prearrangement had been entered into in England 
that, as these delegates were likely to be carefully 
observed in respect to their utterances while in America, 
they felt the uncommon solemnity of their position, and 

228 



LITERARY PRODUCTS 



unanimously resolved to give the most pronounced 
evangelical accent to their deliverances. Among the 
foremost of these utterances was the paper by Dr. 
Forsyth on "The Cross the Final Principle of Author- 
ity." I had made a point of being present when this 
particular paper was read. It undoubtedly marked the 
culminating point in the council. The Temple was 
filled to the galleries, and with representatives of every 
shade of Boston thought and opinion. As the paper 
neared its conclusion, the hush was painful. A con- 
tingent of the body on the American side had hoped 
and expected that Dr. Forsyth would lean toward the 
exclusively subjective view of the atonement. Indeed, 
at an earlier stage of Dr. Forsyth's thought, he had 
done so. But in the school of pain and suffering some 
of his extreme Ritschlianism had undergone important 
changes, and his position, when set forth in this remark- 
able paper, was found to be something vastly deeper 
than the American Andover type of mind at the time 
was prepared for. Dr. Forsyth had again found his 
objective. But he had found it through the subjective 
realm. And this was a far deeper thing than the 
Andover mind had begun to express. 

The Andover conception of Christianity had been 
wont to interpret Christianity as Christ o -centric, as 
opposed to theo -centric, as if the one conception was 
antithetic to the other ; whereas, in reality, they are one 
and the same. What is really central in Christianity is 
the idea of redemption, self-effected by the whole God- 
in-Christ. In Dr. Forsyth's thought, therefore, when 
he speaks of the cross as "the final seat of authority,'* 
he means the expression, in time, of what, according 
to apostolic thought, was really timeless in God and at 
his very heart. This is the thing that is really central 
in God and Christ, the one indivisible triune. The 
propitiation wrought in the atonement was a self-pro- 
pitiation, not affecting disposition, but moral necessity 
and moral consistency in a God who is just, and yet 
as merciful as he is just. The act of God in the atone- 
ment, therefore, is an objective, eternal and yet histor- 

229 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

ical event, which morally "enabled God to act as he 
feels." Our universe, therefore, is redempto-centric. 

When Dr. Forsyth concluded the paper above 
referred to, Dr. H. A. Stimson, once of the Broadway 
Tabernacle, New York, arose and said: 

"Mr. Moderator, this would appear to be the high- 
water mark of this council; it would seem most appro- 
priate that we stand and sing 

" 'There is a fountain filled with blood, 
Drawn from Immanuel's veins.' " 

The moderator, Pres. J. B. Angell, looked embarrassed, 
and hesitated: he turned inquiringly to several of the 
Andover contingent, who sat behind him with shrugged 
shoulders. Just then Dr. Forsyth himself stepped to 
Dr. Angell and whispered: 

"In the cross of Christ I glory." 

This was announced, and the great audience compro- 
mised on that, although singing with a volume of sound 
that filled the building. Since the Bible is filled 
throughout with a symbolism of blood — that is, with a 
symbolism of the vicariousness of Deity, even to the 
very depths of life, divine life, which came to historical 
heartbreak on Calvary — the disclosure was tragic, and 
revelatory of the divided state of the modern mind on 
the atonement. 

But Dr. Forsyth had struck a note so deep that, 
while some repudiated it, as human nature not smitten 
with a deep sense of sin always will, yet with others it 
was a summons to study, as never before, the meaning 
and message of the cross. I was among that number. 

I thought then, and I still think, Dr. Forsyth's dis- 
cussions on the cross the profoundest I have ever read. 
I once spent an hour with my friend, the late Dean 
Hulbert, rehearsing Forsyth's paragraphs, while we 
were attending a Western convention together. When 
I came to some of the central and most striking epi- 
grams, the Dean would say: 

"What's that? Repeat that! That's very striking!" 

230 



LITERARY PRODUCTS 



Then he would spring up and walk the floor and 
repeat the phrases aloud to himself. Some of them 
seemed so new to him, as they had to me when I first 
heard them. But I had absorbed them, and much be- 
sides, which in other phrase came to me from the Scrip- 
tures direct. 

The atonement has been for long "hung up," if not 
given over, by multitudes of ministers ; and few are 
those who teach it wisely. The simple distinction be- 
tween the tragedy of the crucifixion of Jesus by wicked 
men, and the voluntary self-giving of God in Jesus Christ, 
is rarely apprehended. These two things are at the 
very antipodes in thought and principle, and yet who 
teaches the distinction in a clear way? The cross is a 
term always used in the New Testament, in the light 
of the resurrection of our Lord. The term was not 
once written in the Scripture till a full generation had 
elapsed after the crucifying event. Time was necessary 
in the light of the resurrection-life of the church, for 
the term, as a watchword, to find itself and disclose its 
meaning to the church. The cross is simply the most 
misunderstood term used in theological thought. Those 
men who shivered on the platform in Tremont Temple, 
at the mention of the lines, 

"There is a fountain filled with blood," 

were simply thinking of the shambles — a common 
slaughter-house — and they supposed it vulgar, whereas 
the vulgarity is rather in sinful human nature that 
necessitated such a sacrifice as the shed blood symbol- 
ized. 

The atonement was other than crucifixion. The cru- 
cifixion of Jesus by the wicked Jews, was human sin at 
its maximum, whereas the self-giving of God in Christ 
upon Calvary's cross was, as Dr. Dale says of it, "the 
sublimest act in the moral history of God." Matters 
that are as far apart as those, merit a degree of atten- 
tion, and a clearness of exposition, that as yet is wanting 
in most modern thought. 

Accordingly, as I went about over the country, ad- 

231 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 



dressing conventions, and especially ministers' meetings, 
I endeavored, as never before, to point out that one's 
conception of the meaning of that cross in the apostolic 
sense, and one's relation to it, would determine his de- 
gree of interest in the missionary undertaking. 

Erelong, also, I found myself writing some chapters 
on what afterwards took form in a book entitled "The 
Meaning and Message of the Cross." I thought it of 
immense importance to make clear the radical distinc- 
tion between the tragedy of the crucifixion and the 
cross of the atonement. Beginning with some carica- 
tures of the atonement, which had misled strong public 
characters, including Lord Disraeli, of England, and 
Dr. Minot J. Savage, a Unitarian minister of Boston 
and New York, I gave three chapters to making clear 
this distinction. I then pointed out the proper Scrip- 
ture meaning of the emphasis which is undoubtedly put 
on Christ as "crucified." This meaning is not that Paul, 
or others, gloried in the crime of the Jews as such, but 
rather in the paradoxical power of Christ as humiliated, 
even unto the shameful death by Roman crucifixion. 

Paul uses the term "the cross," ironically, and has 
in view the manner in which Christ, through his volun- 
tary and all-powerful resurrection, turned the tables on 
the crucifiers, and all they meant by that crucifixion. 
None of the crucifiers saw the atonement. Probably 
the only person at Calvary, who did see it, was the 
dying penitent who hung beside Jesus, and who, in 
the light of his discovery, upbraided his criminal com- 
panion for taunting Jesus. This "model penitent," as 
I prefer to call him, discerning that Jesus really was 
the King of the Jews, and was allowing them to 
destroy the temple of his body — a temple he himself 
would rebuild in his pending resurrection — cried out, 
"Jesus, remember me when thou comest in [or into] 
thy kingdom." He used the saving name "Jesus." He 
alone, of the five classes that appealed to Jesus on the 
cross, did not say, "Save thyself," but, rather, "Save 
me!" He alone saw that the crucifixion was not 
finality. He saw that a kingdom and a throne were 

232 



LITERARY PRODUCTS 



awaiting- Jesus "over there" ; and he begged to be 
made a member of that kingdom. The seal of Christ 
was instantly put on the incomparable insight of that 
prayer in the reply, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, 
This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." This 
man alone saw and confessed the atonement, as no 
apostle then did, nor even the mother of Jesus. Not 
one of them but would have taken Christ down from 
off that tree if he could. The words of Jesus, in John 
10: 17, 18, express the atonement: "Therefore doth my 
Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might 
take it again. No man taketh it from me. I have power 
[or right] to lay it down, and I have power [or right] 
to take it again. This commandment have I received of 
my Father." That dying voluntary heartbreak, which 
yet issued in resurrection, was the atonement. That, 
this model penitent beside Jesus in the crucifixion hour 
saw and believed. 

I went on to emphasize that the cross, properly 
understood, was a redeeming achievement, and not a 
mere endurance of wrong. I then pointed out that the 
subjective process of a life in which the human self 
was crucified with Christ to self and sin was but the 
sequel of the far deeper work of Christ, insisting on 
the inadequacy of the Ritschlian conception. I wound 
up the volume of ten chapters by showing "the mis- 
sionary energy of the cross," and that the Christ of 
the cross was "the desire of all nations." The book, 
therefore, was, throughout, missionary, in motive and 
spirit. 

Not long after this volume was written, and in connec- 
tion with attendance on the Indiana State Convention, I 
was stimulated by an inquiry put to me, to write a book 
on the question, "How does the death of Christ save 
us?" The moment the inquiry arose I saw where the 
main difficulty lay: namely, here: the death of Christ 
needs to be shown as a very different thing from an ordi- 
nary mortal dissolution — such as occurred in the death 
of John the Baptist or John Huss. The uniqueness 
of Christ's death is that it was a death bitter in its 

233 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

spiritual pangs, but that came to resurrection — akin to 
what we call a "living death" — a death that has "swal- 
lowed up" death "in victory." This was a death with 
a living dynamic in it, such as belongs to no other 
possible death — really a life which, after the resurrec- 
tion, ascended to glory and then issued forth at Pente- 
cost, in the power of the Holy Spirit; the power that 
created the church, and fills it with living members 
who are vitally united with him "who liveth and was 
dead, and is now alive forevermore." This volume 
was brought out both in America and England. I 
received many testimonies the world round as to the 
helpfulness of the discussion. 

Yet, later, during the year in which I was teaching 
in Rochester Theological Seminary, I was moved to 
bring out still another book, which I entitled "The 
Divine Reason (or Logos) of the Cross." The imme- 
diate prompting to the discussion was the last chapter 
in "The Spirit of Modern Philosophy," by Prof. Josiah 
Royce, of Harvard University, in which he says : 

"The best light respecting the mysteries of 'our 
moral order' is found in the recognition of a supreme 
divine Sufferer. The Creator himself suffers in, and 
with, his universe. Behind all the chaos and mockery 
of life there is a suffering supreme One, who, somehow, 
is able to transform it all ; . . . who bears it, and yet 
triumphs. . . . It is the thought, I say, of the suffering 
God that traditional Christianity has, in its deepest 
symbolism, first taught the world (that affords the best 
explanation of things)." "Were not the Logos our own 
fulfillment, were He other than our very flesh, His 
loftiness would be our remote and dismal helplessness. 
But He is ours and we are His. He is pierced and 
wounded for us, and in us. He somehow finds — is it 
not through a real divine atonement as it takes effect 
upon us? — amidst all these horrors of time, His peace 
and ours; . . . All else is hypothesis. The Logos alone 
is sure: . . . This world is the world of the Logos." 

Thus, the last word of philosophic groping is the 
first presumption of the divine gospel. This is the 

234 



LITERARY PRODUCTS 



world of the Logos, and into its mysteries is fitted, 
like a key to a lock, the Logos of the Redeemer's cross. 

A careful re-examination of Paul's thought, in 
1 Corinthians 1 and 2, led me to see that the expression 
in 1 : 18, as it has stood in the Common Version for 
three hundred years, is a mistranslation. Instead of 
reading, 'Tor the preaching of the cross is to them 
that perish foolishness," etc., we should read, as the 
Greek phrase itself does, "For the Logos [or word, or 
language] of the cross," etc. 

Here I found my basis for a fresh and greatly 
needed discussion on the cross as the rationale — the 
rational expression — of our universe. Later on in the 
chapter, Paul, indeed, does say, "But we preach Christ 
crucified," etc. This is the central theme of the pulpit 
of this and of all times, but in verse 18 he is refer- 
ring to the subject-matter of preaching, and he uses, 
not the Greek word for preaching or proclaiming, kerug- 
ma, but the word logos. He has in mind the deep phi- 
losophy implicit in the cross, over which the Jew stum- 
bled, and which to the proud Greek was foolishness, 
yet, nevertheless, is the very "wisdom of God and the 
power of God." 

In my own judgment, the discussion contained in 
my "Divine Reason of the Cross" is of the most far- 
reaching significance of anything I have published. It 
conceives and describes our universe as redempto-cen- 
tric; it recognizes both the objective and subjective 
sides of the redeeming work; and it shows how the 
so-called "forensic" and "moral" statements of the 
atonement are in reality one, not contradictory, but, 
rather, complementary. Nor do I see how any deep 
and thoroughgoing conception of Foreign Missions can 
be long maintained without such emphasis as this. 

Another book emanated from my pen in connection 
with my world tour of Europe and Asia in 1912-13. 
I felt called upon on this tour to give the gist of my 
previous studies as related to missions, and the real 
Christian motive impelling thereto. 

I addressed eight or ten schools in England, includ- 

235 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

ing the Pastors' College at the Metropolitan Taber- 
nacle, Regents Park College and Nottingham College, 
and spoke in many churches. Passing to the Continent, 
and beginning with our seminary at Hamburg, then in 
Copenhagen, Christiania, Norway, and at Stockholm, I 
brought these lectures to a more mature expression, and 
while in Berlin, in the winter of 1913, I wrote them 
out carefully, under the general title "Under the Re- 
deeming ^Egis." These were subsequently published 
in London by Hodder & Stoughton. These lectures 
were intended, primarily, to point out the Biblical con- 
ception of grace — a term which, in the modern mind, 
has a very indeterminate meaning, if it has not been 
almost wholly lost. 

The practical aim of these lectures was to show 
that this world is a potentially redeemed world. The 
redemption is practically conditioned upon the objective 
atoning work of God in Christ. This implies an act 
of God in the premises entirely outside ourselves, and 
in purpose and spirit prior even to man's creation, and 
certainly prior to his sin and fall. This is implied in 
"the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," a 
work of God which also became historical in the work 
of Jesus Christ. On account of this anterior work of 
God, an "aegis" was constituted, redemptive in char- 
acter. Under this aegis, or potential protection, there- 
fore (such as a flag implies for a nation), the world 
has its new form of probation — an evangelical proba- 
tion. The supreme throne of our universe, therefore, 
is not a throne of mere law, not even of holiness or 
love abstractly conceived, but it is the throne of grace, 
and grace is the synthesis of the two attributes, holiness 
and love. The reconciliation, or atonement, therefore, 
was primarily a reconciliation between the two sides, or 
moral poles, in God's own triune being. It was also 
cosmic, as embracing both temporal and eternal factors. 
These polarities are, on the one hand, the moral neces- 
sity of God's punishing sin, and, on the other, His 
infinite yearning to pardon. The antinomy thus exist- 
ing is resolved by the voluntary, vicarious suffering in 

236 



LITERARY PRODUCTS 



behalf of the sinful, undergone by the infinitely gracious 
God, or God in Christ. God's attitude towards a sinful 
world is, therefore, an infinitely compassionate one, 
and the redeemed, who have experienced His grace and 
become godlike, go out in a similar compassion — that 
is, in a missionary way — to save the world; in other 
words, it is the Christian's task, in co-operation with 
the heavenly Father, to make the potential salvation 
actual, as far as possible, to every creature. 

Yet another little book issued from my pen, in the 
fall of 1914. This was an elementary metaphysical 
discussion, entitled "The Solving of the World-riddle; 
or, the Rational Grounds of Theism." This was the 
outcome of some special work that was laid upon me 
in connection with my year of teaching at Rochester. 
I was, in that year, invited by Dr. Strong, not only to 
lecture on theology, but also to take in charge a class 
of "electives" on theism — a department to which Dr. 
Strong had given much attention. I scarcely felt com- 
petent to undertake this latter work. However, so 
earnest was Dr. Strong in his persuasions that, in the 
present state of speculative thought, I would find the 
minds of students coming from the colleges so pre- 
possessed with various errors, like determinism, natural- 
istic conceptions in the spiritual realm, denial of free- 
dom and consequent divergencies of thought in matters 
theological, that, in order to ground such men in the 
criteria for valid thinking in any department, they 
needed to be taken back to elementary metaphysics. So, 
in the three months of comparative leisure that awaited 
me before I should be needed at Rochester, I got a 
copy of Bowne's "Metaphysics" — the text-book to be 
used — and went into the subject. Moreover, I took 
occasion to visit Professor Bowne himself, at his Long- 
wood home, for counsel and help for my new under- 
taking. He received me very graciously, and gave me 
much help. 

With this encouragement, I went to work on 
Bowne's text-book, and read his other works on "Per- 
sonalism," "Theism," "Theory of Thought and Knowl- 

237 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

edge/' and the "Immanence of God." I made a 
thorough written abstract of his "Metaphysics," and I 
did about as careful work with several histories of 
philosophy, so that, by the time I needed to begin my 
teaching work, I felt fairly familiar with the subject. 
The result was that I came out a disciple of the later 
objective idealism, as construed by writers like Bowne, 
Buckham, Strong, Howison (in part), Watson, Wenley, 
and Eucken in Germany. 

I have pursued the subject ever since, especially 
during the period of my recent visit to Germany, 
Switzerland and India. I was called upon to give, in 
Madras, a course of five lectures to an audience of 
clever but captious students, on the "Finality of the 
Christian Religion." I know not what I should have 
done in that atmosphere, without a thorough grounding 
in personalism, for the unchristian Hindu rejects all 
personality, human and divine. I did not deem it wise 
to go into these matters in any controversial way, but 
I did need to be clearly intelligent on the constructive 
lines pursued. After coming home, I felt, inasmuch as 
I had all the matter for it practically in hand and 
written out, I would do well to publish, in a compact 
form, a discussion of the rational grounds of Christian 
theism, dealing, incidentally, with questions involved, 
such as the divine immanence, His transcendence, and 
redeeming passion, evolution, etc. I also found, as I 
passed through the seminaries and colleges, and met 
many students in personal interviews on leading ques- 
tions, that I needed something in condensed, and yet 
clear, form to leave with them. When a student has 
once left college, unless he goes into the technical work 
of teaching, he is not likely to go very earnestly into 
the realm, which he deems such a labyrinth, of meta- 
physics. The result is, that he is likely to remain all 
his life in a hazy state respecting the validity of his 
thinking on any subject, whether scientific, philosophical 
or theological. 

Hence the booklet here spoken of, and the raison 
d'etre of its publication. Of course, such a treatise, of 

238 



LITERARY PRODUCTS 



itself, however able, if it is merely speculative, may not 
suffice to bring one to any experiential knowledge of 
God. But the breach between religion and philosophy 
is much wider, in the esteem of many, than it need be: 
and, inasmuch as all men are born metaphysicians, either 
good or bad, because rational, why not do what we can 
to steady the wavering, at least, and point the way for 
the candid-minded? These books, together with the 
present autobiographical sketches, and a series of eight 
lectures on the "Holland Foundation," just given at the 
Southwestern Seminary, Fort Worth, now in press, com- 
prise my literary products. 



16 239 



XXVI 

THE CO-ORDINATION MOVEMENT 

IN the years 1897-8 the Home and Foreign Mission 
secretaries entered upon a joint endeavor to raise 
their large combined debts of about four hundred 
thousand dollars. Incidentally to the success of this 
effort there sprang up a feeling, in some parts, that 
what our two societies had succeeded in doing - , under 
exceptional circumstances, should be adopted as the 
method of raising current funds for all our societies 
year by year, co-operatively. Personally, I doubted 
this, and the trend of our denomination's movements 
since has justified my doubt. Of course, in the spirit 
of them, all our various forms of service are, or ought 
to be, one. They certainly are, if pursued in the spirit 
of Christ, in an ideal way. But the functions con- 
ceived for different movements differ. For example, 
the editor of a journal is not expected to be equally 
capacitated to manage a college. Each of our mission- 
ary societies was organized to serve a distinct set of 
functions, and it is a fallacy in thought to assume that 
the typical lines of argumentation for the work of one 
of these societies fit the need of another. The only 
way that can be made to appear feasible is to reduce 
missions to an abstraction, say, of altruistic service: 
then to coin the maxim, "Missions is Missions," and 
jump to the conclusion that under this rallying cry 
all forms of interest will be cared for in just propor- 
tions. This might be the case in an ideal state of 
society ; but thus far only a minority of Baptist churches 
has ever become altruistic, much less missionary in 
spirit towards the heathen on the basis of the Christian 
paradox of sacrifice. 

240 



THE GO-ORDINATION MOVEMENT 

That the conception of missions as an abstraction 
has not worked as the special promoters of the co-ordi- 
nation idea anticipated, is evident from the fact that 
since the Northern Convention was formed the very- 
interest which was third in the rank of enterprises con- 
sidered — viz., the Publication Society — has relatively been 
most advantaged by the system of pooling*, through the 
'"budget" idea in vogue, while Foreign Missions has 
been increasingly embarrassed. Nor is it evident that 
the State convention interests, which are more and 
more insistent for what they call their "share," have, as 
a rule, been benefited at all. 

The first definitive step toward co-ordinating our 
benevolent institutions took form in what was called 
"The Commission on Systematic Beneficence," formed in 
Asbury Park in 1904. The commission was composed 
of the secretaries of our representative societies, to- 
gether with a number of strong laymen; and, although 
the commission labored hard to develop more generous 
giving, it came to nought. The critical point wherein 
it failed was in the attempt to deal directly and pri- 
marily with the money question. Dr. Morehouse and 
I in particular, one autumn, started in to hold a series 
of conferences on the subject of "Stewardship." But 
we could not gtt together a "corporal's guard," and the 
wealthy people in particular fought shy of it. The 
fact is, we overlooked the principle that when the con- 
crete facts of mission work are presented in harmony 
with Biblical principles, money is more easily secured 
from "second intention." The reversal of this process 
usually ends in failure. 

The most marked initiative for the creation of the 
"convention," which logically, though indirectly, would 
attempt to manage all our mission work, was taken at 
Detroit in 1900. At that meeting, Mr. Stephen Greene, 
then president of the Home Mission Society, in his 
opening address, came out with a very earnest and 
strong plea that the denomination should undertake 
afresh what, in other forms, had hitherto failed, and 
preliminary steps were taken to create a convention 

241 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

which would co-ordinate all our benevolent interests. 
Never was an effort more well meant than Mr. Greene's, 
but the question was viewed by him, naturally enough, 
chiefly from the fiscal standpoint. Our fundamental 
denominational polity, the history and genius of our 
several organizations and their differing functions were 
overlooked, although the motive unquestionably was of 
the highest sort, and the character of Mr. Greene as a 
Christian layman was as nearly ideal as we may hope 
to see in this world. 

However, the clamor of the hour, voiced by one 
of our leading journals, and the desire to be "like all 
the nations" caught the fancy of our people, and, in 
process of time, the Northern Baptist Convention was 
formed, and the Foreign Mission Society, at least, was 
deprived of some of its characteristic constitutional 
features, and in various ways became sorely handi- 
capped. Personally, I have no objection whatever to 
the existence of the convention for certain general 
purposes, but a convention constituted as ours is, 
impliedly to disintegrate our voluntary chartered so- 
cieties, and with a constituency so widely scattered in 
our broad land, simply can not, as a convention, do 
justice to the grave technical interests of Foreign Mis- 
sions in particular, as a Spirit-moved voluntary body, 
located amidst historic surroundings, and colored by dis- 
tinctive sentiments, can. In the course of history, every 
Protestant missionary body has employed methods more 
divinely selective than popular, and, in the nature of 
the case, must. However, with us the test of the matter 
is on, and we await with solicitude the result. 

The term "co-ordination" itself was most unfor- 
tunate. It begged the main question at issue, for the 
very point at which the opposers of the convention 
movement took their stand was that the societies were 
organized to serve different functions, and, therefore, 
could never become "co-ordinate," except by crippling 
these organizations in certain functions they were 
severally and legally created to serve. For example, a 
society that was brought into being for the purpose of 

242 



THE CO-ORDINATION MOVEMENT 

planting Christianity among the heathen until it should 
become indigenous can never stand on the same plane, 
practically, as a society for church and denominational 
extension, or for circulating denominational literature 
at home, or for Sunday-school work. So, the talk of 
co-ordination was, to say the least, hazy, and adapted 
to mislead the superficial and unthinking, and, rela- 
tively, to suppress the more fundamental lines of 
missionary testimony, to which Christ and the great 
commission summoned his people. 

This is not denying that other lines of endeavor 
than missions to the heathen are incumbent on a Chris- 
tian people. Other endeavors are legitimate and com- 
pelling, in their proper spheres. And under principles 
prevalent among Baptists, all are free to act as they 
feel moved in various directions, and on different levels, 
according to their respective estimates and sense of 
divine calling. 

But this presumes the voluntary principle, "Let 
every one be fully persuaded in his own mind." This 
voluntary principle is, confessedly, the basic principle 
underlying the Baptist idea of polity, and presupposing 
the right of individual private judgment; but the 
co-ordination idea is foreign to this very principle, and, 
logically, it renders, or will render, that principle 
inoperative on the plane of society activities. It has 
already begun so to operate. Whether the convention, 
as implying and assuming functions which are admin- 
istrative of our mission work instead of leaving that to 
be wrought out on its original constitutional basis by 
the society concerned, is even legal, is a matter which 
the lawyers, some day, may re-examine, and respecting 
which Mr. Justice Louis Brandeis has given an adverse 
opinion that ought long since to have been published 
to the denomination. Personally, I believe the conven- 
tion has assumed functions which it is not capacitated 
or justly authorized, for many reasons, to exercise. For 
example, through its nominating committee it has 
embarrassed the wise selection of the executive officers 
of the societies, and through its finance committee and 

243 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

its .executive board it has taken away the autonomy of 
the Foreign Mission Board at several points; e. g., to 
decide on its own schedule of expenditure for a given 
year, or even to determine the program of its own Anni- 
versary meetings. It is logically the death of the 
voluntary society. In view of present emergencies, I 
think it should hasten to restore to the foreign mission 
society that full autonomy which belongs to it, abjuring 
all assumed prerogatives at various points; especially 
in view of certain charter rights secured to it through 
incorporation in at least three States of the Union. 

All this involves at least embarassment, from which 
escape will be difficult. Possibly a number of persons, 
in the course of time, will need to come together and 
begin de novo on the voluntary principle, on which 
Baptist organizations of every sort originally started. 
But that is a painful and difficult alternative. It would 
rouse many antagonisms, embarrass the status of vested 
funds and require years of time to work it out. I 
here can but state the issue as I see it, and leave it to 
the future. 

And now, lest this should be thought an expression 
of mere individualism, or of a provincial type of Bap- 
tist sentiment, let me quote an authority that has written 
profoundly on the moral necessity of voluntary agencies 
for the conduct especially of Foreign Missions. 

I refer to the late Prof. Gustav Warneck, long 
professor of missions in Halle, Germany. He has 
written the ablest and most judicial book on Foreign 
Missions, broadly speaking, ever published. In this 
book Professor Warneck brings out the distinction 
between what he terms Foreign Missions ecclesiastically 
conducted, and Foreign Missions conducted by a volun- 
tary organization especially constituted for the purpose. 

The reformers, from Luther on till the time of 
A. H. Francke, as is well known, were in little or no 
practical sympathy with any plans for the systematic 
evangelization of the heathen world. Warneck points 
out that with the work of Francke and the Pietists of 
his time there sprang up free voluntary movements 

244 



THE CO-ORDINATION MOVEMENT 

among spiritual and elect souls, quite apart from the 
official churches, even the reformed churches of the 
time. This high authority on missions, who was neither 
a Baptist nor a Congregationalist, but a Lutheran and 
a member of the state church, gives testimony that 
concerns not merely the status of the organizations of 
a particular denomination in Europe, but the weal of 
the entire missionary cause among all communions, in 
all countries and in all times. Professor Warneck was 
the trusted organizer of the National Conference of 
twenty-seven foreign missionary societies in Germany, 
that for thirty years have met in annual convocations 
entirely apart from the established church. One of 
these notable conferences, held in Halle, Saxony, in 
1913, I had the privilege of attending. 

Warneck thus writes: 

"In the exigency, when the official church, having 
taken up an attitude to missions partly of indifference 
and partly of hostility, declined the service (as Baptists 
once did), no other course was open than to appoint 
representatives independent of the church organization, 
to whose hands the work of missions might be com- 
mitted. And thus of dire necessity there was born 
within the Protestant world that free association which 
was thenceforth to play in its history a role of eminent 
importance. That this forced birth did not happen 
without the leading of Providence is to-day readily 
acknowledged even by the official church itself, it having 
long ago exchanged its attitude of opposition to mis- 
sions into that of friendship. For with the free asso- 
ciation founded on the Christian principle of volun- 
taryism, especially in connection with the enlistment for 
service of the energies of the believing laity, there 
came into operation, in the evangelical church, not only 
a form, but a power of life, both as regards the work 
of salvation at home and the extension of Christianity 
among the heathen. This agency has done a work 
which the official church could not have done by its 
official representatives." 

Warneck further says: 

245 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

"These societies, which became more and more 
naturalized outlets for the activities of love in the 
church at home, supplied to Protestantism an evan- 
gelical substitute for the corporations which the Church 
of Rome possesses in its 'Orders/ They had their 
starting-point already, in the ecclesiola in ecclesia of 
Pietism (or, rather, the church of all times). . . . The 
church in its official capacity has (now) become an 
active coworker. This fact has repeatedly suggested 
the idea of giving over the whole management of the 
missionary enterprise to be matter of (state) church 
administration; but, with the exception of a single 
experiment of this kind in Sweden (and we American 
Baptists have recently undertaken a second experiment), 
the conviction has gradually become clearer that the 
carrying on of missions by the free society is of divine 
leading, and is to be retained as a blessing both to 
missions and to the church; only the sound reciprocal 
attitude between the free missionary societies and the 
official church must be wrought out into preciser form." 
Thus far Professor Warneck. 

In the light of the above quotations, will it not be 
evident to every thoughtful mind that the very kernel 
of the co-ordination question which for several recent 
years has occupied the Baptist mind in this country is 
reduced to this ; namely, What is the reciprocal relation 
that should exist and be fostered between the several 
voluntary missionary organizations which have sprung 
up in the Baptist denomination in this land and the 
ecclesiastical bodies known as independent Baptist 
churches, from which the constituents of these societies 
have been drawn? There is doubtless a reciprocal rela- 
tion to be considered — a relation which has had increas- 
ing recognition. The societies unquestionably owe much 
to the churches, and in turn the churches owe perhaps 
even more under God to the societies, which have 
really been to them what Warneck calls the ecclesiola 
in ecclesia. The question, then, which our Baptist 
people more recently were called upon to face was 
this: Shall the societies now, after a century of experi- 

246 



THE GO-ORDINATION MOVEMENT 

ence in the eminently successful conduct of missions, be 
called upon in a revolutionary way to abdicate their 
autonomous position, as responsible chiefly to the great 
Head of the church, which the providence of God had 
committed to them, in the interest of a real or quasi- 
ecclesiastical control? Or, shall the churches on their 
part continue more and more to foster the divinest 
ideals for which the societies stand, while the societies 
on their part seek increasingly to win and deserve the 
largest confidence of the churches out of which, under 
God, they have sprung? 

The reason for not trusting too much to the control 
of the church as an ecclesiastical institution is the con- 
stant tendency of the churches to deterioration, even 
corruption. The churches, formally speaking, and as 
often managed, do not afford sufficient guaranty for 
the highest altruistic mission work, for only a minority 
in the church ever rise to the height of caring for 
Foreign Missions in particular; and why should the 
apathetic and often worldly majority hold back or vote 
down the more spiritual minority? Besides, it is always 
most difficult where semi-political methods gain posses- 
sion of church machinery, or where serious doctrinal 
defection sets in, to bring about needed reforms within 
the ecclesiastical body. By corruption I do not mean an 
immediate and palpable moral decay, but such a falling 
away from the apostolic ideals once begotten in us by 
the Divine Spirit as portends ultimate decay.* 

The matter as above accentuated by Professor War- 



* Note the verdict of the "Commission on Survey and Occupation" 
respecting the situation in South America as reported to the recent Panama 
Conference. It is to this effect: that the past "Churchianity" in South 
America has resulted in the grossest immorality and atheism among all 
classes, the educated and the uneducated. And all this has come about, 
notwithstanding the Roman Catholic contention that Christ meant to teach 
that "the gates of Hades should not prevail against" the church — as a 
formal institution. This very interpretation itself has been one of the most 
tragic ecclesiastical^ blunders and calamities of the ages. Nor are our 
Protestant communions exempt from such dangers. It has been overlooked 
that it is only against the ecclesiola in ecclesia, ever renewing^ itself by the 
Spirit of God through insights gained from high altruistic devotion, that it is 
assured "the gates of Hades shall not prevail." Of course the voluntary 
society may similarly become corrupted, but such an agency has fewer 
temptations and greater safeguards than a severe ecclesiasticism with per- 
petual tendencies to formalism, doctrinal error, and misuse of power. 

247 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

neck was threshed out by the fathers of the Baptist 
Missionary Union very early in its history. Indeed, one 
would think that the strong periods of Warneck, quoted 
above, were written by one of our foremost promoters 
of Baptist missionary organization. The period follow- 
ing the immortal action of Adoniram Judson neces- 
sitated the voluntary uprising of an elect few in the 
Baptist churches of the time. Nothing else was then 
possible, inasmuch as the main portion of the churches 
was altogether anti-mission in sentiment; and, alas! 
more than half of them are practically so still. It was, 
therefore, the voluntary society or nothing, if a basis 
was to be laid on which Judson, Rice and other pioneers 
of that period were to find support, or, I may add, on 
which their present-day successors may continue to find 
support. It therefore required the best brain and con- 
science of the time to work out a wise form of organi- 
zation: an organization which, on the one hand, would 
be consistent with the rights of individual freedom and 
New Testament polity, as Baptists interpret it, and yet, 
on the other hand, would justify the creation of a 
practical working missionary body. 

Among the foremost of those who wrought on this 
high question was the distinguished William R. Wil- 
liams, D.D., of New York, doubtless the astutest Baptist 
mind of the period. With him, at a later stage, were 
associated others, like Morgan J. Rhees, Elisha Tucker, 
James H. Duncan, Pharcellus Church and John Stevens, 
to deal with matters corollary to the main question. 

The chief point in the early inquiry was how to 
secure a voluntary organization entirely free from any 
assumption of legislative (or quasi-legislative) power 
over the churches, and yet that should imply on the part 
of the local churches, even through delegated parties, 
no dominance over the voluntary organization. The 
line of reasoning that prevailed proceeded upon the 
ground that the Lord Jesus Christ is Head over all, 
whether of the churches or of the voluntary organiza- 
tion. This principle further recognized that there is 
both a regal and a democratic side to the life of organ- 

248 



THE GO-ORDINATION MOVEMENT 

ized Christianity. On the regal side the sovereignty 
of Christ over the individual is supreme; and it is such 
that even the church can not legislate either for the 
individual or for other churches ; and on its democratic 
side, the church, unlike a political democracy, must 
look and depend, not on mere majorities or ecclesiastical 
traditions, but on the indwelling, animating Spirit of 
Christ, for its ultimate control. There was recognized 
only advisory and never human legislative power, any- 
where. Baptists, therefore, for their missionary prop- 
aganda, were shut up to an "either or" : they must 
either have resort to a Presbyterianized or Episcopal 
form of authority, heading up in some form of cen- 
tralized power, on the one hand, or they must look to 
the aggregate spiritual judgment of the members of a 
society, on the other. The Presbyterian form pre- 
supposed the right of a church to delegate its authority, 
a matter generally questioned by Baptists. Of course, 
either one of these forms of organization was possible, 
and, beyond question, God has historically blessed more 
than one form. Nevertheless, Baptists, as such, must 
proceed under the presumptive guidance of the great 
Head of the church strictly on New Testament grounds, 
or else repudiate any distinctive divine basis for their 
church polity. 

This line of reasoning resulted in the final organ- 
ization of the American Baptist Missionary Union, and, 
in the end, of all our missionary societies, North ; and 
for nearly a century these organizations, with occasional 
minor modifications, stood upon the principles above 
stated, and exceptionally prospered. 

The agitation which has resulted in the Northern 
Baptist Convention had for its nominal purpose the 
establishment of a delegated ecclesiastical control. This, 
however, to date, has preserved neither an adequate 
regard for the real will of the churches truly ascer- 
tained nor left real autonomy to the several voluntary 
societies, and it is doubtful if it ever can. 

The convention has assumed a quasi-control over 
the so-called "denomination" (whatever that term may 

249 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

mean), on the one hand, and over the aggregated inter- 
ests of all the former societies, on the other. It is 
thus a mongrel creation, neither truly representative 
nor Baptistic, and a pure oligarchical autocracy. 

The intent of the above representations is to show 
(in line with Professor Warneck's thought) that the 
voluntary society has far fewer difficulties, for Baptists 
who adhere to any fixed convictions respecting polity, 
than the convention idea, as construed in the North, 
which now obtains. Many so-called Baptists in our 
time, indeed, have no consistent belief on the subject 
of polity; and some probably would not acknowledge 
the authority of any principle in polity, even though it 
were shown to be supported by Biblical precedents: 
and this defect is seriously jeopardizing the whole 
matter of Baptist Foreign Missions. 

But some one will ask wherein I find the norm for 
the organized voluntary missionary organization above 
commended. I answer: In the first movement for 
Gentile evangelization represented in the church at 
Antioch. The account runs as follows : "Now there 
were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets 
and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called 
Niger, and Lucius, and Manaen, and Saul [elect souls 
'an ecclesiola in e celesta']. As they ministered to the 
Lord, and fasted, the Holy r^iost said [to them], 
Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work where- 
unto I have called them. And when they had fasted 
and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent 
them away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost 
[rather than by the organized church as such], departed 
unto Seleucia," etc. (Acts 13:1-4). Here is the most 
satisfactory norm for the voluntary, yet Spirit-called, 
society — "in the church" — for the effective evangeliza- 
tion of the pagan world. On this pattern our Baptist 
Missionary Societies were each and all originally built; 
and on that basis, in my conviction, the best results in 
the end, if followed, would be reached. 

Probably all will not agree with the above view- 
point; but to me the moral and Biblical necessity of the 

250 



THE GO-ORDINATION MOVEMENT 

voluntary missionary society, composed of the ecclesiola 
in ecclesia* is most completely justified. 

But, in my judgment, it would be, therefore, wiser, 
as aforetime, to entrust deliberation and control on 
questions of missionary policy to those — even a limited 
number — who profoundly love missions, who are actual- 
ly contributors to them, and who spontaneously will 
spend the time and money necessary for them to 
assemble periodically for the consideration of the inter- 
ests involved. A body of commissioners, thus formed, 
would the more likely be loyal and hearty in serving 
and promoting such interests. 

The writer is a Baptist of such type as stands for 
Scriptural, apostolic and timeless elements of truth, 
obligatory on all classes of Christians alike, of every 
denomination, and also, in the end, needed by the whole 
world. Otherwise he would withdraw from his present 
denominational connection and seek another, truer to 
the divine ideals, if he could find it. But, failing to 
discover any such Christian body, he remains the New 
Testament type of Christian, called Baptist, and seeks 
actively to promote and propagate those ideals among 
all mankind, while according a like freedom to all 
others. This, and nothing less, is due to the great 
Head of the church, to "truth and to humanity from 
the people called Baptists, if they have any warrant 
whatever for their denominational existence. 

For these reasons I think it may fairly be predicted 
that certain American Baptists, on their principles, will 
some day revert with new emphasis to the voluntary 
missionary agency — an agency composed of those who 
have a distinctive conscience respecting the conduct and 
control of Foreign Missions at least, and will do again 
their "first works." 

* I cheerfully grant that a virtual ecclesiola in ecclesia may be legiti- 
mately expressed through the convention idea, as in the representative sys- 
tem of the Southern Baptist Convention, provided that the constituency of 
such convention remain really deeply spiritual, doctrinally sound, represen- 
tative and non-political in its methods. 



251 



XXVII 

OFFICIAL RETIREMENT 

FOR eighteen years things moved on in the Mis- 
sionary Union with a good degree of prosperity. 
My fellowship with my colleagues, first Dr. Mur- 
dock, then Dr. Duncan, and, later, Dr. Barbour, in the 
Foreign department was close and hearty. We con- 
sulted each other respecting every important matter, in 
whichever department. We often prayed together, and 
whenever anything of distinct promise arose, we met 
at the throne of grace, to give thanks and gain fresh 
courage. 

But at length my immediate colleague, Dr. Duncan, 
succeeding to Dr. Murdock, became aware of a subtle 
disease, that was likely erelong to take him off. He 
was very zealous to see some things well on their way 
to accomplishment, especially that Rangoon College 
should be set on its feet, before his departure. And 
he was equally zealous to see our academy in Tokyo, 
Japan, to which his family name had been given, 
brought to real efficiency. All this, together with full 
justice done to the other missions, old and new. He 
had given great attention to straightening out the 
affairs of the Congo mission, which had got entangled 
with a too lavish outlay for perishable barter goods, 
which, in the early period of the mission, had to be 
used with the natives in lieu of any proper currency. 
The missionaries rallied nobly to his help, and at this 
point he began to feel at rest. He had, also, his trials 
with one of our European missions, and labored hard, 
even visited the field, to endeavor to rectify matters, 
but only temporarily succeeded, from no fault, as I 
think, of his own. 

252 



OFFICIAL RETIREMENT 



But Dr. Duncan began to feel that if he could 
make a tour of the Asiatic fields, in particular, it 
would greatly strengthen his hands and reinforce his 
policies. Accordingly, he made ready in the summer 
of 1898 to go. He sailed from Boston, together with 
Mrs. Duncan, via Europe and the Suez Canal. 

But, arrived at Port Said, he became very ill with 
his old malady, accompanied with such weakness of 
the heart that the ship's surgeon said to Mrs. Duncan, 
if she ever expected to get her husband home again, 
she would do well to return to America from there. 
Accordingly, with an almost breaking heart, the deeply 
disappointed secretary turned back, and came as directly 
as possible to Boston. He arrived at his Brookline 
home, only to take to his bed and to survive but a bare 
fortnight, when his tired and chaste spirit took flight 
to its heavenly home. His decease and funeral moved 
wide circles throughout the denomination and the world. 
His passing was a great loss to the cause, which I, in 
particular, keenly felt. He was a missionary enthusiast 
in the best sense of the word. This enthusiasm sprang 
out of two things. In the first place, he was a rare 
and simple-hearted Christian, and his missionary zeal 
was the natural flowering of his Christian faith and 
character. Then, temperamentally, he was ardent, in- 
tense and highly joyful in everything he undertook. 
His early enthusiasm was kindled in his gifted father's 
home in Haverhill, Massachusetts, through hearing the 
heroic Eugenio Kincaid, of Burma, relate his thrilling 
experiences, all but as perilous as Judson's own. Kin- 
caid held the lad Samuel in his lap as he narrated these 
experiences. Singular, that in my first year in the 
preparatory school in Chicago, when I was but sixteen, 
I, too, should have been brought into contact with the 
same old hero, and been similarly moved. But Duncan's 
contact with Kincaid was only one of a multitude of 
personal attachments to missionaries which characterized 
his whole life, as well as those of his several sisters. 
One of them, Mrs. Robert Harris, was long president 
of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the 

253 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

West, and active in the Eastern society as well until 
her decease in 1910. 

One of Dr. Duncan's qualifications for his position 
was his ability, through uncommon power of sympathy 
and friendship, to make the interests of the missionary 
his own. He would stand to the last for those interests, 
as against any cold, prudential considerations that a 
more secular-minded man would present. Withal, he 
was a man of large faith in the promises of God, and 
his providential purposes for the heathen world. And 
he was so fraternal in all his relations to his fellow- 
workers. I never doubted him for an instant, he was 
so loyal and true. Dr. Duncan had been the pastor in 
Cleveland of Mr. John D. Rockefeller, and gave his 
voice in the right direction when Mr. Rockefeller was 
beginning to take large views with respect to the 
benevolent use of his means. With the coming of Dr. 
Duncan, therefore, to the secretaryship of the Union, 
Mr. Rockefeller sympathetically was brought into closer 
touch with the management. Shortly, Mr. Rockefeller's 
annual contribution began to increase in a marked 
degree. And these contributions increased regularly 
as our work expanded and in connection with Dr. 
Duncan's representations of our needs. When Dr. 
Duncan was taken away, therefore, he was greatly 
missed in many ways. True, Mr. Rockefeller's gifts 
continued to increase rather than decrease, for by this 
time Mr. Rockefeller's plans, as influenced also by his 
benevolent advisers, were quite independent of any 
society official. 

After Dr. Duncan's passing, the whole secretarial 
responsibility fell, for quite a period, on me alone. 
Meanwhile, the agitation respecting so-called "co-ordi- 
nation" went on through the denominational press, and 
in other ways less open and public. 

Meanwhile, Dr. Thomas S. Barbour had been ap- 
pointed to lend me assistance in the Foreign department; 
and at the Anniversaries in 1899, held in San Francisco, 
Dr. Barbour was elected Foreign secretary, a position 
which he held with honor and sincere devotion for 

254 



OFFICIAL RETIREMENT 



thirteen years, retiring in 1912. My relations with 
Dr. Barbour, also, were happy and cordial, although 
difficulties of one kind and another connected with the 
oncoming new order of denominational policy and prop- 
agandism increased rather than diminished, so that 
administration became more and more difficult, in both 
departments of our work. 

I count it a joy here to place on record my appre- 
ciation of the highly efficient character of the service 
Dr. Barbour rendered in dealing with the difficulties 
that encompassed the Congo mission, in particular, 
under the wretched misrule of King Leopold, of Bel- 
gium. The atrocities that were not only tolerated, but 
abetted, by the creatures of the king, as related to the 
"rubber interests," became very acute. Dr. Barbour's 
correspondence with the missionaries in Africa, of a 
confidential sort, respecting the cruelties inflicted on the 
natives, became so engrossing that, in connection with 
influential personages in England, he organized an 
agency, with a view to bringing to an end the shocking 
atrocities that with a high hand were being committed. 

This endeavor almost wholly absorbed Dr. Barbour's 
time and energies for two or more years, till at length, 
with the passing of King Leopold and the enthronement 
of the present high-minded, but greatly afflicted, King 
Albert, the whole situation on the Congo has given 
place to a vastly better state of things. I have often 
sa^d to my beloved and always conscientious and far- 
seeing colleague that it were honor enough for one 
executive of a foreign mission society to have brought 
about so great a reform in a distant part of the earth, 
and in the very face of so astute and severe a monarch. 
It was a really great and statesmanlike achievement, 
and one respecting which I would have been less 
skillful. True, Dr. Barbour had able and indefatigable 
help from men as influential as Edward Everett Hale, 
Lyman Abbott, Rev. Herbert Johnson, the late Everett 
D. Burr, Mr. Morell (of England), and of our State 
officials in Washington, particularly Secretary Root ; but 
to Dr. Barbour's judicial mind, indefatigable zeal, thor- 

17 255 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

oughness and sympathy the real triumph was due. 

Dr. Barbour, later, after official retirement, gave 
himself to the writing of the history of our Foreign 
Society, but amid increasing weakness, until, in October, 
1915, in his New Hampshire home, he quietly passed 
away. I had also very cordial relations with two 
others in official positions. Dr. E. F. Merriam was for 
many years the painstaking, laborious and invaluable 
assistant to Dr. Murdock. He prepared and put into 
circulation a valuable set of lectures, accompanied by 
lantern slides, in the churches. He also wrote and pub- 
lished an admirable history of our missions; became 
editorial secretary, and for a period was a correspond- 
ing secretary of the Union. Dr. F. P. Haggard also 
came into the rooms, first as an assistant, later as 
editorial secretary, and finally, after my retirement, was 
made Home secretary, and gave large and energetic 
attention to office details and reorganization of relations 
to the Northern Baptist Convention. Both these breth- 
ren made records for administrative efficiency and help- 
fulness to their associates in office, and of devotion to 
foreign mission ideals. 

Meanwhile, for quite a period the personnel of our 
own committee had been greatly altering. Some of 
our members, while nobly conscientious, held different 
appreciations from the committeemen of an earlier 
time of the distinctive ends for which our society was 
constituted. The impulse to co-ordinate, for fiscal 
ends primarily, became more prevalent. 

About this time, also, our offices were removed 
from the historic Tremont Temple, with which, as a 
center, our various denominational enterprises in New 
England had been identified for more than half a cen- 
tury, to the new Ford Building, which had recently been 
erected. 

Soon after this, one day in Rochester, I was 
approached by Dr. A. H. Strong, with a proposal that 
I should come to Rochester for a year, and take his 
work, in part at least, in so far as to lecture on the- 
ology and take his class in theism, while he took a 

256 



OFFICIAL RETIREMENT 



sabbatical year away in Europe. I pondered the pro- 
posal for some weeks, and finally consented to accept. 
The matter was specially financed, and the line of 
things appealed to me. When, however, it came to 
the point of asking the committee to allow me a leave 
of absence from secretarial duties for an entire semi- 
nary year, I thought it more prudent, for several 
reasons, to resign outright. 

For some years I had been finding lines of the- 
ological thought very congenial, and the writing I had 
done as incidental to my studies and advocacy of 
missions prompted me to desire to write and publish 
more. Besides, I believed it was absolutely demanded 
that some, at least, of those who believe strongly should 
devote their energies to more positive and yet dis- 
criminating irenic lines of thought on fundamental 
themes than is common in our denomination of late. I 
am of those who simply do not believe in the extreme 
positions many reputed evangelicals have taken in 
negative lines. I have never believed, since I was 
brought from the dark cloud of my own practical 
unbelief in the supreme crisis of my life, several times 
referred to, that the foundations of divine revelation 
have given way. The radical assumptions of doubt 
accompanying a naturalistic and false philosophy make 
slight appeal to me. These often assume the impos- 
sibility of miracles and the virtual non-historicity of the 
Bible, whereas the series of miraculous events in 
the life of Christ, His virgin birth, atonement, resur- 
rection and second coming, in some form or forms yet 
to be manifested, are the foundations of my faith. To 
repudiate these is, to me, apostasy. I have never been 
able to imagine that a mere cold and speculative intel- 
lectualism is likely to prove determinative for facts 
that a vital supernatural experience of the simple- 
hearted alone can test. The presumptions are all 
against it. "Thou hast hid these things from the wise 
and prudent, and revealed them unto babes." 

Doubtless, the Darwinian doctrine of evolution, and 
that construed as Darwin himself never intended, is at 

257 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

the root of the German criticism which has wrought 
so ruinously everywhere, and has now precipitated the 
most painful cataclysm of all history. It is at least 
a partial revelation of "the man of sin," "the mystery 
of iniquity" — the mystery that is set over against that 
other "mystery of godliness," or of God in the flesh. 
The boastful, even braggart, scholarship of the times, 
based on mere guesses and hypotheses rather than 
demonstrable facts, has lain at the root of all this 
mischief. It is this line of things that has made even 
nations indifferent to solemn treaties, to the sanctions 
of international law, and induced the caprice and pas- 
sion of the iron-clad militarist, putting might above 
right, and so falsify God in his own heaven. This is 
the spirit at least of the antichrist, that portends return 
to barbarism despite all that a boastful civilization can 
do. It is an incongruity indeed, just at a time when 
men have been proudly saying that any cultured man 
need not trouble himself much about sin, that sin, 
diabolical and hellish in forms of self-will and pride, 
should have broken out with a virulence that nobody 
would have believed possible in the twentieth century. 
So I was moved toward apologetics. 

I was more than willing to lay down the details of 
missionary administration for the definite opportunity 
to give myself, for a period at least, to constructive 
lines of teaching in calm but confident protest against 
the many threatening forms of error now invading the 
most sacred precincts. 

No real explanation was ever made of my actual 
retirement, and to this day I suppose many friends in 
the denomination wonder how I slipped out so quietly. 
I have, however, never been sorry that, after eighteen 
years of privileged relations to our foreign mission 
w T ork — the most prized possible for me — I laid down 
those responsibilities just when I did. I was aware 
of the deep-laid plans to reconstruct the nature of our 
society relations, in particular, to the proposed new 
Northern Baptist Convention. I have never cherished 
any opposition to the convention, as such, for certain 

258 



OFFICIAL RETIREMENT 



general purposes, but I have always doubted the wisdom 
of such a convention attempting to control foreign mis- 
sion work, grounded in such a history as ours, and in 
plain contravention of our polity. I doubted, throughout, 
the propriety of the attempt of a convention virtually to 
take over the rights and plans of an organization histor- 
ically based on the voluntary principle, and so incorpor- 
ated in three States of our Union. True, the convention 
disavows the exercise of anything but advisory func- 
tions, but, all the same, the practical effect of its actions 
is morally, even severely, legislative, and is likely to 
be until the convention consents to allow real autonomy, 
at least to the several mission boards. Until it does, our 
missionaries on the field must ever feel that they have 
no line of confident approach to any secretary, board 
or other responsible executive that has either freedom 
or authority to whom they can appeal when necessary. 
Foreseeing, therefore, the certain direction which things 
must take, I was glad enough to be relieved from the 
responsibility of the readjustments that would be neces- 
sary, if the active promoters of the convention had 
their way. 

It was better on all accounts, if the revolution was 
to come, that younger men, with differently educated 
consciences from mine and with less conviction respect- 
ing the divinely wrought nature of our previous mis- 
sionary history under Baptist polity, should deal with it. 
Accordingly, I closed my official activities and quietly 
went to Rochester, and from thence into my present 
line of service. 

Another matter incidental to the later period of my 
secretaryship may be referred to. In 1906, at the 
Anniversary held in Cleveland, the Board of Managers 
had resolved, after earnest debate in several sessions 
of their body, to undertake the raising of an educa- 
tional fund of at least five hundred thousand dollars, 
as a means of strengthening the higher schools abroad. 
Some were confident I could raise the amount. 

I was set to work on the enterprise. In one meet- 
ing particularly, held in the Hotel Manhattan, New 

259 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

York, we got a very good start. At that meeting 
three persons subscribed sixty thousand dollars, and a 
total of over seventy thousand was assured. I went 
on in quieter ways, through personal visitation and 
correspondence, until, in the second year, I had a total 
of two hundred and twenty thousand dollars on my 
pledge-book. It had been my purpose from the start, 
after getting one-half the amount, to appeal to Mr. 
Rockefeller's representative for the second half, instead 
of beginning with a conditional subscription from Mr. 
Rockefeller as an initiative. But for some reason this 
was met coldly; and when this became known, sub- 
scriptions ceased. The three foremost subscribers who 
had led the way immediately cut down their former 
pledges to only one-fifth of the original amounts they 
were willing, conditionally, to give. I was put upon 
a line of reflection that convinced me I could do little 
more. It was no use then trying to persuade Baptists, 
of large means or small, to put much money into educa- 
tional institutions abroad in the immediate future. So, 
with the consent of the executive committee, I con- 
cluded to draw the endeavor to a close, after personal 
communication with all who had subscribed, securing 
new and unconditional final pledges. I obtained written 
assurances of what amounts these subscribers would 
stand for. The total amount thus assured without con- 
ditions, from my effort, was about one hundred and 
fifty thousand dollars. These pledges, in written form, 
all made for higher education, I turned over to our 
treasurer. Here ended my special effort to secure 
anything in the way of an "educational fund" for our 
mission schools. Shortly after I was sent as a delegate 
to the Morrison Centenary Conference in China. 

On this second tour to the Far East I rethought the 
whole question, and gave up all hope of so-called 
"higher education" among Baptists in foreign lands in 
the near future. We may go on to help the native 
church to bring into being and help on primary and 
secondary schools for the children of Christians. We 
may do this from current funds, such as the regular 

260 



OFFICIAL RETIREMENT 



contributions from the churches admit of year by year. 
Should there be individuals of ample means who are 
minded to do something larger, say for a college in 
Burma, China or Japan, that may be well, provided 
necessary safeguards against fundamental defections 
in faith and teaching are secured. 

For myself, I have some matured views respecting 
what constitutes "education." Education is not, and 
never will be, mere expert technical intellectualism. But 
this is not "to put a premium on ignorance." Far from 
it. Moreover, that is a false alternative : the antithesis is 
not between mere knowledge and ignorance, but be- 
tween far more important things ; namely, between those 
factors of insight which are born in one who allows 
deeper elements than mentality to operate and that 
agnosticism which is born of mere mentality, and that 
commonly a perverse mentality. Real insights, often 
called mystical, are the result of the training of all the 
faculties of man in normal proportion; i. e., of the 
proper person, embracing mind, conscience, heart and 
will; whereas mere intellectualism, often deified as 
the summum bonum, results in agnosticism, now and 
always. "Canst thou by searching find out God?" 

For real education, as above conceived — the normal 
thing — enabled always by the Spirit of God, I stand, 
whether on the foreign fields or in the home land. For 
no lower type of education have I much zeal. 

There are, therefore, worse things than that Baptists, 
generally speaking, are as yet apathetic on the matter 
of endowments for our mission schools. Our people 
fall into two classes : the one class, true to the Christian 
instinct, fear being misled in our mission propaganda 
if we radically turn to a secular and heady idea of 
education. The other class inclines to disparage such 
devout education as we have had, and do not trust a 
pre-eminently evangelical missionary agency to educate, 
on conservative and careful lines anyway, although it 
embraces those sound factors which make education 
really safe and Christian. So we fall between the two 
stools. 

261 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

There is real mischief in one-sided views of educa- 
tion. We have but to survey the tendencies in Europe 
and America broadly to discover it. The special zeal 
ever is to secure what is called "academic freedom." 
Yes, but it is that very species of freedom — the merely 
"academic" — the freedom that is impatient of moral 
and volitional restraints — that is so perilous. Academic 
freedom is generally a plea for pure intellectualism, 
under which lies the assumption that mere mentality 
is sufficient to discover and test reality. This is not 
true; and such assumed freedom easily becomes aca- 
demic license and then academic bondage. That is 
precisely what has turned out to be the case in proud 
and self-willed Germany. In that land all the univer- 
sities have been subsidized by the state, and afford 
chiefly mental gymnastics. In these mere gymnasia, just 
there, the most unbridled dogmatism and moral license, 
as affecting every realm, have been begotten. The prac- 
tical unanimity with which the general university life 
has lent itself to a proud absolutism and an unconscion- 
able and brutal militarism is now demonstrated to be a 
chief peril in the world, affecting disastrously every 
land and people. It is this that has united universal 
normal democracy against it, whether in belligerent, 
neutral, or other countries. The weal of the human 
race is at stake. This is a far deeper matter than the 
triumph of any political empire, more than a mere 
racial question, as between Teuton, Slav, Latin or 
Anglican ; it is the political, economical and even philo- 
sophical apostasy of mankind that has arisen, like an 
unchained demon, to ruin every fair domain. 

I often wonder if the educators of the world have 
forgotten that there are at bottom but two philosophies. 
The first is that implied in the primeval temptation, 
under which our race went down. "For God doth know 
that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be 
opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing." The very 
first thing they knew was that they were fallen and 
naked, so that they soug'ht to hide themselves from 
Deity. The other philosophy is that of Jesus, expressed 

262 



OFFICIAL RETIREMENT 



in the culminating phrase of his inaugural sermon : 
"Be ye therefore perfect" — perfect in the sense of com- 
plete, fully rounded and consummated, through the 
empowerment of divine grace — "even as your Father 
in heaven is perfect" — on his pattern of perfection, per- 
sonally holy and gracious, as well as rational. With 
man in his weakness, however intellectual he may be, 
he is ever tempted with the ambition to be primarily 
clever; and this vice peculiarly infects university life, 
because in such circles a premium is put upon pure 
intellectualism. Our own time has demonstrated that 
the greatest villains are not those who, on occasions, 
steal a loaf of bread to appease hunger, or a garment 
to protect against cold, but those who steal railroads, 
who covet and embezzle insurance companies and whole 
corporations. Many of these, alas ! are university men, 
whose training is a perversion of both morals and 
reason* 

The really great educators, such as Francis Way- 
land, Timothy Dwight, Martin B. Anderson or Pres- 
ident Seeley, sought to develop the whole composite 
man after the Christly pattern, and to a wondrous 
degree they succeeded. A type of personality, at least 
of kindred spirit to these, at the head of our schools, 
whether in Japan, China, India, Africa, Europe or 
America, would create an atmosphere in which most 
college vices could not live. 

Thus, a variety of reasons combined to indicate that 
I had probably reached the limit of the best service I 
could render to the society. So I quietly laid down my 
official responsibilities and gave myself to serve the 
cause in other ways. 

* See Appendix "A," on "Radicalism in Education." 



263 



IN YET WIDER RELATIONS 



265 



XXVIII 
MY MISSIONARY LECTURESHIP 

TOWARDS the end of the year of my even and 
happy work in Rochester, Dr. Strong returned 
from his period abroad. Everybody connected 
with the institution expected that he would resume his 
ordinary tasks, both of administration and of teaching". 
But he was very hesitant, and not long after he resigned 
the presidency. Meanwhile, the regular annual meet- 
ing of the Faculties Union, representing our several 
theological seminaries, which had been in existence for 
several years, occurred at Toronto. Shortly thereafter, 
Dr. Strong announced to me that I had been invited 
by this union to devote myself indefinitely to lecturing 
on missions, in rotation, to the several seminaries, and 
he would like me to begin the next September at 
Rochester, residing a whole month at the seminary. 
Meanwhile, also, through Dr. Strong's efforts, as a 
member of the sub-committee of the Faculties Union, 
he had in part secured, and would complete the task of 
obtaining, from a few elect individuals, the financial 
support requisite for the lectureship. One lifelong and 
very generous friend, both of missions and of the semi- 
naries, subscribed one-half the amount deemed requisite, 
and has continued to do so until the present, and a 
few others have cheerfully supplied the other half. The 
institutions shared, pro rata, the traveling expenses. 
This seemed to me a plain call from God, and there 
was nothing to do but accept. This I did, and entered 
upon the task the following autumn. I gave, in 
Rochester alone, that year, a course of fourteen lectures, 
and in part repeated them at Chicago, Hamilton, Crozer, 
Kansas City, MacMaster, Toronto, Louisville, Fort 

267 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Worth and Waco. The lectures of this year I pub- 
lished later, under the title "The Task Worth While ; or, 
The Divine Philosophy of Missions." The title was 
suggested by the text in Isa. 49 : 6 : "And he said, It 
is too light a thing that thou shouldest be my servant 
to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the pre- 
served of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to 
the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto 
the en,d of the earth." 

I intended, by the use of the title, to put the supreme 
emphasis on Gentile (or universal) world evangeliza- 
tion — home evangelization included — as the Bible itself 
does. It is the refusal to recognize the primacy of the 
work among the Gentiles broadly, that has so long 
delayed Christ's triumph. 

In other years I gave courses on "The Spell of 
Christian Missions," and under other general headings 
which allowed of wide treatment of the historic, theo- 
retic and practical features of the work. I also preached 
commonly on the Sabbaths, and addressed ministers' 
meetings on the interrelations of evangelical truth and 
missions broadly. I did not go to all the seminaries 
strictly each year, but was allowed freedom to take in 
colleges, academies, State universities, special confer- 
ences, etc. 

Suffice to say, I followed this up for seven years, 
and still pursue it. The time came when requests 
came from some of our missions abroad that I be per- 
mitted to give a period to our mission colleges and 
schools in foreign lands, with the conditions of which I 
was pretty familiar. The upshot of this was that I was 
given two years in which to do both Europe and Asia, 
in one of the most interesting and inspiring of all my 
itineraries. The account of this I shall give in chapters 
that follow this, devoting the first part to my year in 
Europe and the next to my experiences in Asia. I was 
generously enabled to take my wife with me on this 
trip; and the whole expense was cordially financed by 
friends of the cause, a matter which calls forth our 
profound and heartfelt gratitude. 

268 



MY MISSIONARY LECTURESHIP 

In fact, our theological seminaries provide, in the 
ordinary, to a considerable degree for lectures on mis- 
sions, comparative religion, the history of missions, etc., 
covering the more formal phases of theoretic missions. 
Dr. John H. Mason, in Rochester, did a piece of excep- 
tionally strong work for several years, as also did Dr. 
Wm. N. Clarke years ago in Colgate. Dr. Vedder, in 
Crozer; A. H. Newman, in Fort Worth, and Dr. Hul- 
bert (in his day), in Chicago, have all wrought 
well here. Several of our missionaries, home on fur- 
loughs, also have done special work, particularly in 
Colgate. Among those who have thus served have 
been Drs. M. C. Mason, W. A. Stanton, L. W. Cronk- 
hite, W. T. Elmore and J. L. Dearing. 

However, the particular experience which I had had 
as a wide traveler on the fields, with prolonged prac- 
tice in administering the home side of the work and in 
developing the missionary spirit as something constitu- 
tional to Christianity, combined with my twenty early 
years in the pastorate, had prepared the way for an 
uncommon welcome throughout the country, North and 
South, and in Canada. In the winter of 1916 I toured 
widely through eight of the Southern States, and gave 
courses of lectures to leading Baptist colleges in Wake 
Forest and Charlotte, N. C. ; Greenville, S. C. ; Macon, 
Ga. ; Georgetown and Louisville, Ky., embracing four 
colleges for the colored people in Raleigh, Columbia and 
Atlanta. I further preached or gave addresses in Rich- 
mond, St. Augustine, Deland, Orlando and Live Oak, 
Fla., giving a total of over ninety addresses, and was 
received everywhere with great warmth by my Southern 
brethren. Many have generously testified that this period 
of my public life has been highly fruitful in positive con- 
structive work, affording an opportunity that comes 
to but few in a lifetime. The lectureship has been 
favored with a wide and generous hearing and greatly 
extended fellowships. And it has allowed a visitation 
to England, and to all our missions on the continent 
of Europe and most of our missions to Asia, just prior 
to the world war. 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Incidentally to various tours southward, I made 
several visits to West Virginia, including Parkersburg, 
Philippi (the seat of Broadus Institute), Athens and its 
State normal school, and Bluefield. The latter is a 
growing town of much promise, where my eldest son, 
the Rev. Harry S. Mabie, with his devoted and versatile 
wife, has been settled as pastor for about seven years, 
and in the midst of a very prosperous work, surrounded 
and sustained by some very strong families, which, of 
course, is a great joy to his father. In connection with 
one of these visits, in which I participated in a pathetic 
funeral, a revival sprang up, beginning with the con- 
version of several members of the afflicted family, who 
afterwards contributed generously toward a great im- 
provement in the church property as a memorial to the 
deceased daughter and sister. The membership of the 
church has more than doubled, an unfinished edifice 
been completed and the church prominently linked with 
many public and philanthropic activities in the city's life. 

The period of several years during which this lec- 
tureship continued was one of marked defection of 
faith in many quarters. The prevalence of the Dar- 
winian conception of evolution, the supremacy of 
natural law and determinism in philosophy had widely 
affected theological opinion in high places. The "Graf- 
Wellhausen" theory of the structure of the Bible, based 
on the naturalistic evolutionary hypothesis, had under- 
mined confidence in the Old Testament as a revelation 
from God, and theories of historical criticism, likewise 
imported from Germany, had disturbed the faith of 
many respecting portions of the New Testament, so 
that the common teachings of some seminaries respecting 
such truths as the actuality of the incarnation, the 
atonement, the bodily resurrection of Christ and his 
proper Lordship, together with the whole realm of 
miracle, were brought in question. Indeed, these 
matters became the most common themes of discussion 
in theological classrooms, so that a foremost function 
of seminary life seemed to be to train apologists on 
very doubtful philosophical presuppositions, rather than 

270 



MY MISSIONARY LECTURESHIP 

to develop able and positive preachers of the Word, and 
expositors of divine revelation. It was, therefore, a 
most trying time for a lecturer who had remained 
unshaken in his confidence regarding the supernatural 
basis of revelation as contained in the Bible to deliver 
his messages. 

True, the lectureship was supported in the interest 
of missions, but all were aware that, in my advocacy 
of missions for twenty years, I had ever grounded my 
appeal and depended for the awakening of motive on 
fundamental Christian verities, while illustrating them 
by features of missionary history. Besides, it has ever 
been by me unswervingly held that the dynamic in any 
missions worth while — even their very legitimacy — de- 
pends on whether there be something divinely revealed 
and likewise universal and timeless behind or within 
them to be communicated. 

Accordingly, therefore, while always embracing in 
my courses certain distinctively missionary addresses, 
whole volumes of which have since been published, I 
also introduced discussions respecting the theological 
and philosophical foundations of missions. I refrained 
from directly antagonizing prevailing errors, and gave 
myself to constructive lines of thought, the truths of 
which were verifiable in the experience of evangelical 
missionaries, from the apostle Paul, the master mission- 
ary, down to the present. I usually treated themes like 
the following: "The Clue to Certainty in Religion," 
"The School of Christ and Other Schools," "The Cen- 
trality of the Paradoxes in Christianity," "The Salva- 
tion of the Life Career," "The Making of a Missionary 
Church," "Wanted, Missionary Personality," "Soul- 
winning as a Divine Art," "The Lost Chord in Mod- 
ernism," "The Ethical Dynamic in the Cross," "The 
Essential World Message," "Where the Agnostic Misses 
the Way." But the emphasis was ever on the experi- 
ential matters of the Christ-life. 



18 271 



XXIX 

AGAIN AFIELD: ENGLAND 

IN the year 1913-14 the World Baptist Congress was 
to be held in Stockholm, and also the Judson 
Centennial in Burma. There were special reasons 
why I should give the year preceding to a visitation of 
important centers in continental Europe. 

With all my travels, I had never been permitted to 
visit particularly the Scandinavian countries, where 
our mission work has been so fruitful, or Russia, the 
center of greatly increased Baptist activity as well as 
of dire persecution, or Germany, apart from a trip up 
the Rhine in 1882. With these advanced purposes in 
view, my wife and I set sail on the "Devonian" from 
Boston, August 3, 1912. We landed in Liverpool after 
a comfortable voyage of ten days. We spent the first 
three months in England. Very friendly announce- 
ments had been made of my coming in our Baptist 
papers, the British Weekly, etc. Pulpits opened to me 
in a dozen cities in England. I was at once made at 
home at the headquarters of our Baptist Foreign Mission 
Society, on Furnival Street. The new Home secretary, 
Dr. W. Y. Fullerton, secured various appointments for 
me, both in churches and colleges. Mr. Shakespeare, 
secretary of the Baptist Union, and also his brother, 
editor of the Baptist Times, were equally cordial, as 
were also Revs. Thomas Phillips, Thomas Spurgeon, 
A. C. Dixon and others, courtesies which I hold in high- 
est appreciation. 

The evening of our arrival in London, our niece, 
Dr. Catherine Mabie, en route homeward from the 
Congo, to our delight, appeared at our door in Chis- 
wick. She remained with us in England, and shared 

272 



AGAIN AFIELD: ENGLAND 

many of our high experiences before resuming her 
journey homeward to America. 

Our visit to England was really in two parts. We 
first tarried there from about the middle of August 
until the first part of November. We then went to the 
Continent, touching at Hamburg, Germany, then going 
to Scandinavia, Russia, Germany and the French 
Riviera; thence back, via Switzerland, Paris, Calais and 
Dover. Our second period in England extended from 
the middle of May to early in July. During this second 
visit, I was kept very busy preaching and attending 
various functions. 

Accompanied by my wife, my daughter (Mrs. 
Weld) and child, my son Roe, his wife and child, and 
Dr. Catherine, who after her furlough home had 
returned to England, we all went together, first to Ant- 
werp, Brussels and Waterloo; thence to Cologne; 
thence up the Rhine to Mainz; thence part of us to 
Zurich, to the World's Sunday-school Convention, and 
part to the Bernese Oberland. Here at Hilterfingen on 
Lake Thun we came together and sojourned about six 
happy weeks. Then we parted again to our several 
ways, my son and family going to London, my daugh- 
ter and child to America, Dr. Catherine to the Congo, 
and Mrs. Mabie and I, via Italy and Egypt, to the 
Far East. 

The events spoken of herein as occurrring in 
England were, therefore, partly at the time of one 
visit and partly at the time of the other. The order 
of the events is not stated chronologically, nor is that 
important. 

I was invited, in the early autumn, to attend the 
meeting of the Baptist Union in Cardiff, Wales. During 
the meeting at Cardiff, we were handsomely entertained 
by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Fifoot, leading members of 
the Wesleyan Communion, and lifelong friends of 
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan. The meetings of the union 
were very similar to our American Anniversary gath- 
erings. The opening address was by the president of 
the union, J. W. Ewing, D.D., of the strong church in 

273 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Peckham Rye, a suburb of London. It was in every- 
way an ideal presentation for such an occasion: evan- 
gelical, modern, and yet filled with timeless truths 
adapted to stir all hearts. On the evening of the first 
day occurred an important function ; namely, the formal 
welcome of "the Lord Mayor and the Lady Mayoress" 
— both arrayed as for a state occasion. It was quite 
impressive. Another notable receiving with these func- 
tionaries, and much in evidence, was the venerable 
Lord Pontypridd, of Wales, himself a Baptist and a 
simple-hearted Christian. 

Rev. Thomas Phillips, at the Cardiff meetings, also 
preached one of his original sermons on "Prayer and 
Missions," it being based on Peter's prayer at Joppa — 
"the prayer on the roof" — and the consequent vision 
that sent him to Cornelius at Csesarea. Other great 
messages were delivered by Rev. Charles Brown, Rev. 
A. C. Dixon, Dr. Clifford and one of the Careys (a 
great-grandson of the celebrated William Carey). And 
there were several others, all of which rang peculiarly 
true to the evangelical idea and the atonement of our 
Lord, timeless and yet historic. I also gave two 
addresses, and was afforded, as an American visitor, 
the Chautauqua salute. Foremost among the enter- 
taining brethren was Principal Edwards, the head of 
the Welsh Baptist College in Cardiff. The day follow- 
ing the adjournment of the union, Principal Edwards 
took us in a carriage over to Caerphilly, the old, 
historic home and church of the famous Christmas 
Evans, the Spurgeon of Welsh preachers in his time. 
While in Wales, with Mrs. Mabie, we spent a Sunday 
at Porth, a mining town, as the guests of the pastor's 
family, and I preached twice on Sunday. 

I was deeply impressed by the strong and capable 
character of the personnel of the missionary society. A 
missionary breakfast that was given at a special morn- 
ing session increased this appreciation. 

I participated also, with Dr. Fullerton, in one of the 
district conferences in the interest of Foreign Missions, 
at a large meeting in Birmingham, and gave an after- 

274 



AGAIN AFIELD: ENGLAND 

dinner talk. My wife, my niece and I also spent a very 
interesting- Sunday at Birmingham, and I paid a second 
visit to Birmingham later, at the invitation of Mr. 
Hoyland, principal of the Friends College, and spent a 
forenoon looking over the superb institution, in which 
our Quaker friends take so just a pride. Here I met 
the distinguished and most gracious Christian scholar 
and Orientalist, Dr. Rendell Harris, in his own study. 
He showed me his great find — the so-called "Odes of 
Solomon" — it being the most ancient collection of 
Christian hymns in existence, dating, it is supposed, 
from the second century or early in the third. But the 
guidance of Dr. Harris through the spacious college 
buildings, plain but solid, on the well-kept grounds, was 
even more heart-warming. In one hall in particular — 
I think the dining-hall — were painted upon the walls 
mottoes and epigrams from the great mystics, like Fox, 
John Woolman, Jacob Boehme, Elizabeth Fry, and 
others, sentiments which the college labors to keep 
alive in the minds of its students. 

Another place of momentous interest which we 
visited was Leicester. Here I preached a Sunday, in 
Melbourne Hall Baptist Church, where F. B. Meyer 
had one of his famous pastorates, and where Dr. 
Fullerton served later. On Monday morning I was taken 
by my genial hostess, a Miss Walker, to visit the historic 
preaching-place of William Carey, in the old Harvey 
Lane Chapel, previously referred to. Robert Hall had 
for years preached in that same sanctuary many of his 
peerless sermons. The statue of Hall, standing on a ped- 
estal alongside the pulpit, must be a rather trying pres- 
ence to be always before a congregation listening to any 
ordinary pulpiteer. Flere, also, Rev. James Mursell was 
once pastor, and here my own father-in-law had spoken 
more than once, in the days of his itinerating work 
as Baptist home missionary secretary and friend of 
Mursell. One other thing in that chapel delighted and 
surprised me; to be shown among the church archives 
an autograph letter written to my wife's maternal 
grandfather, Dr. William Steadman, of Horton — now 

275 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Raw don College — by Carey, begging him to stand by 
him, at a time when the triumvirate was undergoing 
a stiff persecution from some of their missionary asso- 
ciates in India, being charged even with schemes of 
money-making for themselves, when they were really 
existing on the smallest margin of a hundred or two 
pounds a year, and turning in all the balance of their 
profits from books sold, and from an indigo factory 
besides, for the support of the college and for printing 
the literature they had created, and for which needs 
the English Baptists had not the money. Carey's 
special appeal to Steadman was for enough encourage- 
ment to enable them to continue the pittance required 
for some of their native workers, who otherwise might 
have to be dismissed. The chapel-keeper kindly had a 
copy of this quite generally unknown letter made and 
sent to my wife, which we greatly treasure. 

I had, while in Leicester, also an introduction from 
the Walker sisters to Mrs. Penn Lewis, a Christian 
worker and writer of some note, who at the time had 
as a guest in her house the celebrated, but now disabled, 
Welsh evangelist, Evan Roberts, who, however, from 
extreme nervous weakness, was "not at home" to 
callers. I saw him through the window walking in 
the garden, but had no nearer approach. 

Another of my outstanding experiences on this my 
fifth trip to England was a visit to Manchester, to spend 
a Sunday as a guest of the Rev. S. F. Collier, at the 
head of the largest city mission enterprise — Wesleyan — 
in the world. It has an auditorium that will probably 
seat twenty-five hundred people. I spoke both morning 
and evening. I was the guest over the Sabbath of Mr. 
Collier, together with Mr. Collier's close friend and 
mine, Mr. F. B. Byrom, of Hoylake. We had a day of 
high converse together. Mr. Collier, at the time of my 
visit, was president of the Wesleyan Union of Great 
Britain, and he was at the time preparing his annual 
message. Mr. Byrom and I were brought together 
through his interest in my several books on the atone- 
ment, some of which he had taken pains to buy and 

276 



AGAIN AFIELD: ENGLAND 



circulate. He had us at one time as guests in his home, 
and during our Continental and Asiatic tours his mis- 
sives contained repeated proofs of his generous interest 
in my travels, and of desire to save Mrs. Mabie on 
occasions from avoidable fatigue, when extra cab fare, 
provided from Mr. Byrom's generous purse, was in hand. 
On yet another brief visit to Manchester, I called 
upon Dr. Marshall, the head of the Baptist College. 
He received me most cordially, invited me to dine with 
him, and took me to see the famous John Ryland 
Library, of which he was a trustee, and also to call 
on Pastor Roberts, successor to Dr. Maclaren in the 
Union Chapel, where I had preached as supply for 
two Sundays, at the time of the Baptist Congress in 
London in 1905. The rather unique thing about the 
Manchester Baptist school was that the students, prob- 
ably not over thirty in all, dined with President Mar- 
shall's family, and other members of the faculty, in the 
family dining-room of the establishment. In other 
words, the relation between teachers and students was 
uncommonly intimate. 

Yet another place of exceptional interest which 
opened to me, not far from London, was St. Alban's, 
the seat of a famous old cathedral, very historic, and 
replete with antiquities of long centuries ago. I sup- 
plied the Baptist church for two Sabbaths. On the 
Monday following one of these I was taken for a drive 
a few miles out to the old estate of Lord Bacon, and still 
in possession of descendants of the family. Remains of 
the original house occupied by Bacon are still to be seen, 
although that part of the place, as a whole, is a time- 
eaten ruin. My trip to St. Alban's brought me into 
contact with another of England's renowned preachers, 
the Rev. W. L. Watkinson, D.D., of the Wesleyan Com- 
munion. While in St. Alban's the first Sunday I saw 
notices posted, announcing that Watkinson would speak 
on the following Tuesday evening in the Wesleyan 
Chapel, in the interest of some institution for the blind 
in the edge of London. I resolved to be there. On 
the way out to St. Alban's, I fell in with Watkinson on 

277 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

the train. We had met once before, at Winona Lake, 
Indiana, but I had never heard him speak. He received 
me most cordially, and said: "Now, you are my guest 
for the day." He took me with him to his place of 
entertainment, and insisted on my going into the pulpit 
with him at his meetings, sharing in the exercises. 
Following the afternoon discourse we were comfortably 
dined, and then taken for an automobile trip out to 
an interesting country region, past the famous estate 
of the late Lord Salisbury. We did not enter the 
grounds, but were driven by the imposing gateway, and 
observed the statue, in sitting posture, of His Lordship. 
Watkinson's afternoon sermon, on "The Ministry of 
Infirmity," was as unique a thing, in its way, as I ever 
listened to. He made us see more reasons for being 
afflicted, even to blindness, and having the afflicted to 
care for, than I ever dreamed could be arrayed in one 
address. The audience was very small, but it seemed 
to have no depressing effect on the great preacher. His 
wit and wisdom, marked by much drollery, were a 
marvel to listen to. He spoke again in the evening. 
In wit and pathos, Watkinson even outdid the effort 
of the afternoon. How he satirized the philosophical 
people who have turned critics of revelation, miracle 
and the Christian gospel, men who were consummate 
"masters of an armchair." What "numbers of them" 
he had seen, "with their systems, go down and pass into 
oblivion" in his day. After the service, we journeyed 
back to London together. The day was a rich one in 
my English experiences. Watkinson, withal, was a 
great champion of America and American institutions. 
I had also a visit of great interest, with my niece, 
Dr. Catherine Mabie, to Kettering, the scene of the 
labors of the celebrated Andrew Fuller, preacher, 
apologist, and the first and greatest secretary of the 
English Foreign Missionary Society. I went to Ket- 
tering to supply the pulpit of his old church. I had 
been there before, but not to preach. My niece and I 
were royally entertained by one of the leading manu- 
facturers of the place and a deacon of the church. My 

278 



AGAIN AFIELD: ENGLAND 



sensations were peculiarly deep and moving to find 
myself in that historic pulpit. I preached in the 
morning on "The Throne of Grace," the supreme throne 
in our universe, the throne with a rainbow round about 
it, the throne of God and the Lamb. How could I, in 
that pulpit, have preached on a theme less central and 
evangelical ? 

My niece and I also spent a day in Bedford, the old 
home of John Bunyan. We, of course, drove out to 
Elstow to see the original little cottage in which Mrs. 
Bunyan and the blind daughter, Mary, made lace for 
support in the years of the immortal John's imprison- 
ment. 

We went to "Bunyan Meeting" to see the noble 
modern chapel, with its fine bronze doors, in which are 
cast scenes from the "Pilgrim's Progress," and to see 
in the front hall the original doors of the old prison 
that so long shut Bunyan in from the light of day. 
They looked fearfully worm-eaten, the hinges and locks 
being largely consumed with rust. We also observed 
the many souvenirs of the past, accumulated in a 
museum by the chapel keeper, and looked upon the case 
within which are gathered translations of the "Pil- 
grim's Progress" in more than three hundred different 
languages. 

I had a most pleasing contact with the Metropolitan 
Tabernacle and the Pastor's College. It was a delight 
to see my friend of years, Dr. A. C. Dixon, so strongly 
entrenched in the confidence of Spurgeon's old parish, 
and in the eyes of the London public. He had made 
engagements for the occupancy of his pulpit on the 
Sundays of his vacation before my arrival, but he 
cordially invited me to preach on two Thursday eve- 
nings, which I did to two large congregations. I was 
also invited by the Rev. Thomas Spurgeon to give 
three lectures on Friday afternoons to the students of 
the college. There were about sixty men present on 
these occasions, and twice I remained to tea with them, 
giving, also, after-tea talks. Mr. Spurgeon's spirit, as 
well as personal appearance, now that he has become 

279 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

somewhat gray and the tones of his voice so rich and 
full, greatly reminded me of his sainted and gifted 
father. Later, I was also present at a great gathering 
at the orphanage on Founder's Day. 

I was also invited by Principal Gould to give a 
lecture at Regent's Park College, and by President 
Bowser to visit Nottingham, where I also spoke to a 
large mixed meeting, composed both of students and 
the public. I gave a general survey of Asiatic missions 
as I had seen them. One of the very pleasantest 
episodes that came to Mrs. Mabie and myself was our 
visit to Rawdon College, near Leeds. We were the 
guests of Pres. William Blomfield. The institution has 
a charming property, picturesquely situated, and the 
appointments are in every way admirable. When it 
was understood that Mrs. Mabie was a granddaughter 
of Dr. William Steadman., who was the first principal 
of the college, then known as Horton College and 
located in Bradford, the interest in our visit increased. 
After my address, the later evening was spent in the 
college. Mrs. Mabie was called out. She told various 
incidents that had come down traditionally through her 
family, including the tale of the courtship of her 
knightly father, in his college days, with one of the 
daughters of President Steadman. This brought down 
the house. 

I was invited to spend a Sunday in Bradford, and 
to preach at one of our leading Baptist churches there, 
of which one of my wife's uncles, Rev. Thomas Stead- 
man, was once pastor. 

While on a visit to one of our cousins, Mrs. John 
Aldis, at Cross Hills, I was brought into touch with 
the most famous layman in their parish, Sir John 
Horsfall, and a member of Parliament. Sir John 
honored me on the second day of my visit by taking me, 
with several members of his family, on a motor trip 
over some of the high moors of Yorkshire, through 
Haworth, the home of Charlotte Bronte, to Hebden 
Bridge. Sir John was to preside at a notable meeting 
called for the unveiling of a statue to John Foster, once 

280 



AGAIN AFIELD: ENGLAND 

a minister of the Baptist church in the place. A large 
company of ministers and other delegates was gathered 
from surrounding towns. The address, surveying the 
life and giving an analysis of Foster's character, was 
by Sir Wm. Robertson-Nicoll, of London, editor of the 
British Weekly. The deliverance was a notable one in 
every way, particularly for its cordial tribute to the 
great service rendered to the cause of modern missions 
by its founders and promoters, the English Baptists. 
During the exercises, frequent reference was made to 
Rev. John Fawcett, the long-time pastor of this same 
church which Foster served. My wife, while a girl, 
on a visit with her father in 1866, was once entertained 
in the Fawcett home. This same Fawcett was the 
author of the hymn, "Blest Be the Tie that Binds." 
The day was altogether one of the most interesting 
days, among many such, that I have ever spent in 
England. 

The memory of a Sunday at Frederic Charrington's 
great Assembly Hall enterprise, in East London, the cen- 
ter of one of the most remarkable works for "the down 
and out" people, is warmly cherished. 

My friend, Dr. Waldo, since of Willson Avenue 
Church, Cleveland, who for many consecutive years 
until the last has put in the month of August in special 
evangelistic work with Charrington, met me at lunch 
one day, and invited me, in behalf of Charrington, to 
come over and spend the Sunday with him, take dinner, 
and then give a few hours to a march through the 
White Chapel district. "Only," said he, "do not bring 
your watch or any money, except loose change for car- 
fare, for one never knows what sort of desperate folk 
he may fall in with, and the place is a nest of crime. 
Policemen rarely go there except in squads." I reached 
the place in time for the morning service with Charring- 
ton. At about two o'clock we prepared for the after- 
noon parade. It embraced the gathering of the well- 
conducted brass band, the bringing out of several 
banners, and the alignment of a score or so of attendant 
workers, armed with tracts and leaflets for wide distri- 

281 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

bution along the line of march. We had no policemen. 
Charrington, always well dressed, even wearing a silk 
hat, is worth a battalion of them for securing respect. 
Passing along the broad street on which the assembly 
hall is located, the band at once struck up a stirring 
air. Shortly we turned into a side street, Charrington, 
with Waldo on his left and me on the right, leading 
the way. We passed through street after street, and 
alley after alley, the band everywhere attracting crowds 
to the doors, windows and doorways, and the children 
even flocking from every direction. I should think we 
had a thousand of them around us at several intervals, 
most of them unkempt, dirty, and having a startled sort 
of look. Some of their mothers came, saying, "How de 
do, Mr. Charrington !" for some of these had been fed 
by Charrington's bounty on many a Sunday evening. 
But how blear-eyed and wretched most of the men 
looked, and some of the women even more so. All the 
time, as we marched on that Sunday afternoon, the 
workers were scattering the little dodgers, advertising 
the meetings at the hall, and inviting all who would to 
come; and there was enough gospel printed on those 
pages to guide a blind soul to the cross. Finally we 
came to the front of a saloon, and Charrington halted 
the procession. 

"There!" said Charrington; "do you see that sign 
over the door, 'Charrington's Ale'? That is the sign 
advertising my father's liquors. 

"Before this saloon, I, as a young man, once stood, 
eyeing that sign, which you have observed is frequently 
seen hereabouts. But these wretched people all about us 
are the real advertisement. 

"As I stood there I saw a poor woman with two 
weazen children come up to that door, look in and call 
out her husband, and beg for enough money to buy a 
loaf of bread for the two children who were tugging 
at her gown. 

"Do you suppose that man gave her the money? 
Instead, he drew back and struck her such a blow with 
his fist that it felled her like an ox at the shambles. 

282 



AGAIN AFIELD: ENGLAND 

"That blow knocked the brewing business out of me 
forever, although I was not yet a converted man." 
Soon after, he announced to his father that he would 
never take any responsibility for the perpetuation of 
the brewing business. 

His father, though I believe a churchman, said: 
"You are a fool. Why, there are millions in this busi- 
ness, and you'll come in for a large share in your turn: 
you can't afford to take that stand." 

"I shall take it," quietly answered the son. 

And he did. He was soon converted, and then he 
began, with but the smallest means, this work which 
has now so prospered that it is renowned as one of 
London's first rescue stations. 

When we returned from the march, about six 
o'clock, we found the sidewalk in front of the assembly 
hall, on Mile End Road, filled with people waiting for 
the doors to be opened. 

The great delight which Mr. Charrington takes in 
his line of work is much in evidence. Some competent 
friend had undertaken to write his life, and wanted 
to entitle it "The Great Renunciation." "No," answered 
Charrington ; "call it 'The Great Acceptance.' " And so 
it had to be, if it was to be written at all. 

We devoted a day to an annual gathering and exhi- 
bition at Dr. Bernardo's country establishment for 
orphans in the environs of the great city, at Barking- 
side, to which contributors and sympathizers annually 
go up. Exercises of every description, that would illus- 
trate the methods employed to develop and rouse the 
latent possibilities of boyhood and girlhood, were brought 
on in arenas and various enclosures. Athletics is made 
much of — even military tactics are taught and practiced 
with calisthenics — for both boys and girls. All sorts of 
skillful needlework, lacemaking, etc., are in evidence. 
Schoolrooms are shown till one is tired of going the 
rounds. Music of all sorts, including choral singing, 
solo work, the use of brass and wind instruments, 
Swiss bell-ringing, etc., are features. Indeed, there is 
such attractiveness in the composite life there, and it is 

283 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

all so scientifically conducted and on so sound peda- 
gogical principles and methods, that one wonders how 
the children, after several years of life so fascinating, 
can be willing to go away. 

And yet the appeal to the heroic is on so high a 
level, and the great opportunities of life are so held 
up to view, that they do go in thousands; and as the 
years pass, reports come back to the home — which is 
always a rendezvous for return visits — that the work 
becomes increasingly inspiring. 

One day we were surprised by an invitation from 
one Miss Elout, personal secretary to the Countess of 
Tankerville, of Tunbridge Wells, asking us to come 
down and spend the day and night at the prettily 
located, but not extended or pretentious, home of the 
Countess. The great and historic estate is in the north 
of England, where the present Earl, son of the Count- 
ess, resides and perpetuates the principal splendor of 
the house. 

The Countess received us with great warmth, for 
she is an uncommon Christian, and had invited me to 
give a parlor address on our mission to the Telugus, 
my relation to which in the columns of the Christian 
had awakened her interest. With Mrs. Mabie and 
myself, Rev. William - Fetler, of St. Petersburg, and his 
fiancee also came. 

The Countess herself we found a most gracious lady 
of about seventy, tall, and in early life, I should judge, 
must have been uncommonly handsome, not to say 
queenly. She was a lady of the simplest and sweetest 
manners, and extremely affable. She, withal, is an 
uncommon artist. Her house is filled with the products 
of her own brush. Her marine pictures, with the 
rolling surf of England's coast, were finely colored. 
Her animal paintings were of a large type, and 
embraced among them some of the original breed of 
big-horned white cattle, for which her ancient northern 
estate is especially famed. One of her pictures — that 
of a stag — on the suggestion of Mr. D. L. Moody, was 
sent to the Chicago Exposition in 1893. 

284 



AGAIN AFIELD: ENGLAND 



In the long evening afterwards, in the quiet of the 
family group, I was drawn out respecting some of the 
deepest experiences of my life. And we discussed, 
sympathetically, together some of my thoughts on the 
atonement, such as have come out in my seveial books. 
Then I was asked to close the day with prayer. We 
then went to our chambers, thanking God for that side 
of England's religious and missionary life, and for all 
it means to the ongoing of the kingdom. 

Afterwards we met the Countess and her secretary 
at one of the sessions of the Mildmay Conference. At 
this conference I had given two addresses, one of 
which they were present to hear, and it resulted in an 
invitation to come a second time to Tunbridge Wells, 
with the added privilege of bringing along with us my 
daughter Muriel and her little Elizabeth, who, mean- 
while, had arrived from home to g'o to Switzerland 
with us. The second visit was no less charming. It 
was a great treat to my daughter to get this glimpse 
into the truly noble life of England, the home for 
generations of her paternal ancestors— and little Eliza- 
beth, our five-year-old granddaughter, so enjoyed the 
many flowers. Since then the little dear has gone to 
a home that is fairer than that, where she awaits our 
coming to mansions statelier, and to flowers sweeter, 
and to yet nobler fellowships that will never end. 

Trips to the country almost anywhere in England 
are a perennial delight. A rare opportunity for one 
of these, under exceptional circumstances, arose as 
follows: I had met, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, 
several of the foremost workers in the London City 
Mission, including its secretary, Rev. Martin Anstey. 
This work ramifies in every conceivable direction, 
and for all sorts of people, that nobody else cares for. 
It is an association of immense usefulness, thoroughly 
evangelical of course, and has the patronage of the 
best people in all communions. 

The year we were in England the society was 
invited by one Sir Harry Veitch to hold its annual 
outing on his estate, perhaps thirty miles out of the 

285 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 



city. A special train was to be provided; hundreds 
were to go. I, with my wife, was invited by the 
secretary, Mr. Anstey, to join the party for the day, 
and I was to give an address on some first principles 
of the divine art of soul-winning. 

It was a great day, with perfection of weather, and 
the spacious home and grounds of Sir Harry were all 
aflower. And that is saying much, for our genial host 
is the largest grower of flowers and plants for market 
in the United Kingdom. Withal, they have the most 
scientifically equipped establishment for a dairy, the 
raising of fowls, and all else belonging to a first-class 
English farm. This immensely interested me. For 
hours we were permitted to roam anywhere at will. 

The dinner was served in a mammoth tent, and the 
viands were of the choicest. Sir Harry and also his 
wife, of course, were brought to the platform at the 
psychological moment for a few words, after the 
boundless thanks of the party had been expressed ; and 
we were all sent back to the city with renewed gratitude 
for the combinations possible between "big business' 1 ' 
and religious care for the neglected and unfortunate. 
Of course, there were numerous participants in that 
meeting, now redeemed and living illustrations of the 
power of the gospel to work its miracles, after all else 
had failed. Some of these spoke at the after-luncheon 
talks. Taken all in all, this extended stay in England 
was a highly satisfying privilege. 



286 



XXX 

ON THE CONTINENT: SCANDINAVIA AND 
RUSSIA 

IN the month of November we took our departure for 
the Continent, via Harwich, the Hook of Holland, 
The Hague and Amsterdam. Our objective was 
Hamburg Seminary, before which I gave, through an 
interpreter, two lectures. And I spoke three times on 
the Sabbath at different Baptist churches. Hamburg 
itself is a truly majestic city in its architecture, public 
institutions and enterprises. It was the home of the 
famous John G. Oncken, our modern Baptist pioneer 
in Germany. The seminary and, of course, the several 
churches are the direct outcome of his work. The First 
Church is large and prosperous. It has for pastor 
Rev. Klaus Peters, a graduate of our Rochester Semi- 
nary, and one of those whole-hearted men who always 
creates an atmosphere of his own wherever he appears. 
The church held a characteristic housewarming over 
their American secretary of the society which, from 
Oncken's time until now, has fostered and encouraged 
Baptist work in Germany. We were impressed by the 
more than forty deaconesses in simple uniform, who 
passed the refreshments and gave such a homelike 
atmosphere to the whole place. The pathetic remem- 
brance of that meeting, not to speak of many others 
we enjoyed in Germany, in these tragic days of the 
awful war, by contrast, is most touching. 

We met the distinguished Prof. Karl Meinhof, of 
the Colonial Institute, one of Germany's most advanced 
enterprises connected with the scientific development of 
her colonial policy, just now in such jeopardy. For 
linguistic purposes alone, probably a dozen native Afri- 

19 287 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

cans, carefully selected, had been brought to this insti- 
tute to serve as helps, both to teachers and students, in 
the mastery of as many different African dialects. The 
highest use is made of the phonetic method of acquir- 
ing pronunciation. We saw some marvelous exhibitions, 
in the laboratory, of the technique of the system. For 
example, we looked into the throat of a subject making 
different sounds, and through a mirror, skillfully 
devised for the purpose and with electrical lighting 
attachment, we saw the exact play of the delicate vocal 
chords. Then, shortly after, a reproduction of the 
action of these chords, as transcribed by a delicate 
apparatus, was shown on a smoked film. This record, 
of course, could be preserved for future use. 

We found Professor Meinhof very genial. My 
wife inquired if she could be permitted to attend the 
lecture he was about to give on the method of acquiring 
one of the one hundred and twenty- four dialects of the 
Bantu language, which displays such remarkable philo- 
logical marvels, and the grammars of which he has 
mastered. He replied: "Certainly, Madam; but you will 
find two teachers and but one student, one an African 
go-between." Together with two professors of our 
seminary, we went to the lecture-room and observed 
his methods. The professor would first require the 
student to review an exercise he had already studied, 
then Professor Meinhof would add his corrections. He 
would then call upon the African boy to repeat the 
same words or phrases, while the student caught his 
tones and accent. In this plodding but effective way, 
students make rapid progress, which is incomparably 
superior to the old processes, which required years to 
master a language that can now be acquired, and with 
more accuracy, in a fragment of the time. 

From Hamburg we went to Copenhagen. Our 
genial friend, Rev. Peter Olsen, met us and conducted 
us to a comfortable hotel, and in many ways opened 
our way while in the city for several days. The pastor 
of the Baptist church also called upon us, and between 
him and Brother Olsen a reception was arranged for, 

288 



SCANDINAVIA AND RUSSIA 

which served to gather the brethren together from all 
sides. I addressed them in a mass-meeting on the 
second evening on "The Mission Work of Baptists in 
the Wide World," Bro. Olsen interpreting. The Danish 
people seemed moved as I warmed to my theme, and 
my time for the broad subject was unlimited. 

In the days that followed, Bro. Olsen, who was at 
the head of the work in general, including management, 
teaching in the small theological school and conducting 
a religious paper, gathered the students and a few 
pastors besides, who came in from outlying districts, 
and I gave several lectures on themes which I deemed 
appropriate to their needs. While at no time were 
there over a dozen present, yet it was a heart-warming 
time. On the last evening there were, perhaps, twice 
the number, and it closed as a tea-meeting, mingled 
with prayer and renewed consecration to the difficult 
work in Denmark, where the state-church idea much 
impedes the American conception of evangelization. 

While in the city, through the genial mediation of 
Bro. Olsen, the way opened for a very delightful meet- 
ing with one of the most interesting characters I met 
in all Europe ; namely, Pastor Martensen-Larsen, grand- 
son of the renowned Bishop Martensen. I had previ- 
ously heard of this remarkable man through some 
articles translated out of the Danish by my friend, 
Ernest Gordon, which he published in the Northneld 
Record of Christian Work. 

These articles were a virtual review of Martensen- 
Larsen's book, "Zweifel und Glaube," a remarkable 
treatise on doubt and its cure, as illustrated in the 
author's own case. The moment I read that review, 
and especially after conversation with Mr. Gordon, I 
knew this author was really describing what had 
occurred in my own case years before (although my 
form of doubt was practical rather than speculative). I 
was, therefore, extremely anxious to come into contact 
with the gifted and spirited writer. 

Bro. Olsen had explained to him how, through 
Gordon, whom Martensen-Larsen had met in Copen- 

289 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

hagen, I became interested in his book, and he, accord- 
ingly, invited Mrs. Mabie and myself to come to 
luncheon with himself and family. I found the dear 
brother as simple as he is gifted. We found him in 
a very genial home, with a sweet and chatty wife and 
one son, who commanded the best English of the three, 
and we were not long in getting acquainted. We came 
at once to the source of my interest in him, and found 
that we were absolutely en rapport on the subject of 
vital Christian experience, and the lines along which 
one could find the light. 

The fact was that, while he was a student in Ger- 
many, for some years his faith became so shaken that 
he fell into a practical despair, which for a whole year 
drove him, as he says in his book, to "practical mad- 
ness." He found that his doubt was more than merely 
speculative, and at length, through a newly surrendered 
will to the authority of the most palpable facts he knew, 
although holding variously shifting mental opinions on 
speculative questions, he emerged into a clear light, and 
has been a happy and radiant Christian ever since. In 
his book, not yet, unfortunately, translated into English, 
but only into German, he quotes the notable experiences 
of several persons, among them that of Adolph Monod, 
of France, as types of the crisis through which he 
passed in his marked spiritual emergence. We had rare 
fellowship together; we also exchanged several letters, 
later, while I was in Germany. I also sent him copies 
of several of my books, in which I think a more bal- 
anced justice is done, both to the subjective and objec- 
tive sides of redeeming truth, than he was at one time 
prepared to see. I found him in just the state I myself 
was in at one time — of emphasizing only the half-truth 
— that is, of the subjective experience. He was only 
forty-two years of age, and so I was not overmodest 
in calling his attention to the necessity of both the 
objective and the subjective, especially if we are to 
prove helpful in leading others to the vital matters. It 
was a rare morning we had together. 

I yet hope his book, respecting which he is too 

290 



SCANDINAVIA AND RUSSIA 

modest, may be translated and published in English. 

We had a most interesting morning at the Royal 
Library in Copenhagen, an extended affair, and had 
pleasing fellowship with Lange, the librarian, one of 
the foremost men in Denmark for his interest in 
missions. Of course, we went to the City Museum of 
Art and to the famous Thorwaldsen Museum, and 
visited the church containing his masterpiece of Christ, 
and also his statues of the twelve apostles. 

At Christiania, in Norway, we were met, on arrival, 
by several brethren, and among them Pastor Ohrn 
and Professor Oie. Brother Ohrn shepherds the 
Tabernacle Baptist Church, and Professor Oie is 
the head teacher in the theological school, and he also 
edits the Baptist paper. Both had long studied in 
America. A most cordial reception was tendered us 
by the Baptists of the city and surrounding towns. I 
preached several times and gave a half-dozen lectures, 
to both students and pastors. I had previously sup- 
posed that the typical Norwegian, like his climate, was 
cold, and stoically difficult to move, but I gained quite 
an opposite impression through contact with the Chris- 
tiania people. Their ardent hospitality and devotional 
warmth were exceptional. For example, at the observ- 
ance of the Lord's Supper, which followed a sermon I 
had preached on "Evangelical Worthiness at the Lord's 
Table," the large audience sang, not twice only, but 
several times at intervals while the elements were 
being passed. I was never more moved at the Lord's 
table. Moreover, the work is growing; Pastor Ohrn 
had baptized five hundred converts won from formal- 
ism to a more vital faith in ten years, and in ever- 
widening circles the Baptist message of such preachers 
as we have there is receiving welcome. We left 
Christiania with a far larger estimate of the possibilities 
of our work in Norway than we had before cherished. 

We took a night train for Stockholm, and in the 
early morning we were met at the station by Brethren 
Bystrom and Benander and driven to the Hotel Excel- 
sior, a hostelry built and owned by the Y. M. C. A. 

291 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

The first incident of interest following this was the 
large reception given us in the First Church by the 
Baptists of the city. There was a great crowd. The 
building itself was of interest to me, for, as a lad, I 
remember when Rev. Andreas Wiberg came to Belvi- 
dere in a round of visitation of the American churches 
to secure means for the erection of this building. Little 
did I then dream of such a reception as this ever being 
given to me and to the daughter of my old pastor, in 
Sweden. The address of welcome was delivered by 
Pastor Johnson, of the First Church, which he had 
taken the pains to write out in English for our benefit. 
The Nestor of Swedish Baptists, Dr. Knute O. Broady, 
offered the prayer, and shall we ever forget the wel- 
come he personally gave to us both in those deep, 
soulful tones so characteristic of him? He was then 
eighty- two years of age, but he was still able to 
lecture once or twice a week in the seminary. How 
he did pray that God's anointing would rest upon us 
both, as we went through the churches of Europe, and 
on to the great missions in India, Burma and China! 
We were made thoroughly at home by this welcome, 
and when I arose to address the thronged house, filling 
every inch of space in the galleries and on the stair- 
ways, I was deeply exercised. I thought of the great 
Swedish churches in America and their unwonted fidel- 
ity to Christian truth, representatives of whom, returned 
to Sweden, were even now before me, and of the 
fifty-five thousand Baptists in Sweden itself, now 
gathered into our churches. I felt it a great honor 
to stand up among them and recount memories of the 
past and predict the greater things of the future. At 
the seminary I gave six lectures on themes connected 
with redemption. Dr. Benander, now the head of the 
seminary, and my skillful interpreter, months after- 
wards wrote me, in very strong terms, of the benefits 
derived from the lectures, both by faculty and students. 

I had a second most interesting Sabbath evening 
with one other of the seven or more Baptist churches 
in the city. Dr. Bystrom, our Baptist M. P., most ably 

292 



SCANDINAVIA AND RUSSIA 

interpreted. At that meeting, not only was every seat 
above and below stairs occupied, but the two aisles were 
nearly packed full of people standing throughout the 
evening. I had two most interesting trips to outlying 
cities and towns. The first was to Upsala, the seat of 
the ancient Imperial University. I was accompanied 
by Dr. Benander, the Upsala pastor and another pastor 
from the north. We had a large meeting at the Baptist 
church of the place on the evening after we arrived. 
The next morning we visited the university and the 
historic Cathedral Church, or "Dom," as it is called. 
We went to the university library, primarily to see the 
so-called Codex Argenteus, or "silver codex," prepared 
by Ulfilas towards the end of the fourth century, and 
written in characters which Ulfilas himself devised for 
the introduction of a written language and the trans- 
lated Scriptures among the Gothic people north of the 
Danube. This codex embraces the four Gospels. It is 
written on purple vellum in silvered letters, which gives 
it its name. The volume is of quarto size, encased in 
a solid silver binding, and is safely locked within a 
glass case to avoid any possible theft or injury. It is 
one of the most precious manuscripts in existence, and 
a marvelous monument to early missionary zeal and 
genius. It was among the few relics in all Europe 
that I was most anxious to see. 

The "Dom" Church was of chief interest to me 
because of the elaborate tombs, or sarcophagi, which 
contain the remains of Sweden's great monarchs and 
other characters, such as Gustavus Adolphus, who gave 
Protestantism to Sweden ; of Linneus, the great botanist ; 
and Swedenborg, whose religious vagaries never par- 
ticularly interested me, down to King Oscar, the father 
of the present monarch. 

The other visit outside of Stockholm was to Norr- 
koping, to attend an important conference of about 
eighty Baptist ministers, in a two clays' meeting. I was 
formally presented to the conference, and permitted to 
give two addresses, one on "The Evangelical Grace of 
the Gospel," and the other on "Asiatic Missions." 

293 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Following the latter occasion, a great supper was spread 
in the main auditorium. The settees had been removed 
for the purpose. A stronger body of big men, physi- 
cally, mentally and spiritually, I have rarely seen 
together. 

Shortly after this a number of the more public- 
spirited Baptist men and women of Stockholm pro- 
vided a farewell banquet at the Hotel Excelsior, and, 
after much felicitous speech-making and thanks for 
our coming, sent us on our way "after a godly sort." 
We took the night steamer for Helsingfors. There we 
spent but a single day and night. The Baptists, includ- 
ing a number from outside the city, among them 
Brother Swenson, long a missionary in China, assembled 
in the Baptist church for a meeting. This meeting I 
addressed, Brother Swenson interpreting. 

The next morning we took the train for the long 
journey to St. Petersburg. The ride was dreary, and 
a part of the way through driving snow. We had 
wired the Hotel de France to send a carriage to the 
station for us. Our passports were ex?'~ ! :ied en route, 
deemed satisfactory, and we arrived lat*. at night. An 
old man, speaking very poor English, met us and 
escorted us by a long drive to the hotel. We purposely 
kept aloof from our more prominent Baptists for some 
days to avoid suspicion, although our errand was a 
very harmless one. On Sunday morning a Swedish 
brother came to our hotel and took us to Mr. Fetler's 
church, the Dom Evangelia. Mr. Fetler himself was 
away in Riga, but his assistant, Mr. Nephresh, was in 
charge. We sat incognito during the service, although 
at the close, through some sort of freemasonry, I was 
spied out and brought to the front to offer prayer, 
which my Swedish friend interpreted into Russian. 
I declined to speak, for before my arrival Mr. Fetler, 
and also our United States Ambassador and my old 
friend and Massachusetts Governor, Hon. Curtis Guild, 
had written me that freedom for me to make public 
addresses was entirely debarred in Russia because it 
was known that I had been a missionary official, and 

294 



SCANDINAVIA AND RUSSIA 

Russia suffers no sort of proselytism among her people 
on the part of foreigners. This I found to be literally 
the case, but it did not particularly worry me, because, 
as a guest in Russia, I had enough sense of propriety 
to observe the laws. On this account, during my twelve 
days in Russia, I betook me to private life as far as 
possible. 

We later took up our domicile in one of the apart- 
ments of the German Baptist chapel, under the care 
of the excellent brother, Rev. Mr. Arndt, and were 
shown many attentions by himself and his charming- 
wife. This building was purchased, in part, with the 
avails of Baron Uxkiull's solicitations in America. 
The impossibility of starting a college in Russia as 
early as was hoped led to the temporary investment of 
ten thousand dollars of that fund in this building. 
Another ten thousand dollars was put in charge of 
German brethren in Warschau, the Warschau that 
lately fell to German arms. The Germans in Russia 
have long had exceptional freedom there in religious 
work. Whether they will continue to have it after the 
war remains to be seen. My wife and I finally spent 
a day and night as the guests of Mr. Fetler at his 
apartments in the Dom Evangelia, and I went to the 
Dom to hear Fetler preach to a great crowd, and to 
see him baptize some candidates on a Sunday evening. 
I also heard Mr. Nephresh preach one evening, in a 
city hall engaged for the purpose. Policemen were 
present, and always are at these meetings, but some 
of them, also, become converted, in spite of the laws. 
And many come forward for prayers at every meeting. 
The night we heard Fetler, before he reached his 
sermon some arose in the audience and called out, 
asking if the gospel could save them. And after the 
sermon. I should think fifty or so came forward 
and knelt for prayers in the area before the pulpit. 
There were not less than two thousand people present. 
Fetler had crowds wherever he preached in Russia, 
despite all the restrictions. It is a pity beyond measure 
that the money needed to complete payments due on 

295 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

that building, popularly authorized at the Baptist Alli- 
ance Meeting in Philadelphia, was not long ago com- 
pletely raised, instead of misdirecting our energies in 
trying prematurely to create a Baptist college, as yet 
forbidden by Russian authority. In connection with 
my visit there, Fetler and I secured about twelve 
thousand dollars from America and England to avert 
a legal proceeding against the property by contractors, 
but there still remains a debt of not far from twenty- 
five thousand dollars on a property valued at about 
eighty thousand dollars, and at present Fetler is in 
exile in America. Of course, where the war will leave 
things no one can now tell, but we shall hope, after 
the fearful ordeal through which Russia has passed, she 
may come to allow something like a decent religious 
liberty for all her subjects. 

St. Petersburg, or Petrograd, abounds in fine crea- 
tions of art, among which the most impressive are the 
equestrian statue of Peter the Great, mounted on an 
uprearing horse, and that of Catherine the Second and 
several Czars, upon imposing pedestals. The city also 
has many fine churches, judged from an architectural 
point of view. One of these is to the late Alexander 
II., most ornately built upon the spot where he was 
assassinated; but the chief of the churches is the 
Cathedral of St. Isaac. It is often likened to St. 
Peter's at Rome, but with little justification. Its most 
impressive features are the great columns in the 
porches, chiseled from single blocks of red granite, and 
several inside the structure of solid pure malachite, 
the cost of which is said to have been fabulous. But 
the place is crowded with forlorn beggars. Like all 
Russian churches, it has numerous costly ikons, the 
chief element in the superstition of the people. 

One quiet little episode, while in St. Petersburg, 
came unexpectedly to me. This was a visit, through 
the kind courtesy of the housekeeper of the place, and 
a friend of Mr. Fetler's, to the original palace of 
Princess Leven, in which now the Italian Embassy has 
its home. It was in these spacious drawing-rooms, 

296 



SCANDINAVIA AND RUSSIA 

some of them adorned with malachite columns, that 
Lord Radstock, of London, years ago conducted a 
series of Bible lectures, which led several nobles and 
princesses to Christ, and among these Princess Leven. 
The memories of that service will never die out among 
evangelicals in Russia, rendered all the more indelible 
because some, like Baron Pashkoff, suffered exile in 
consequence of the pronounced testimony he openly 
bore to his newly found life. Years before, the present 
Lord Radstock — then simply Mr. Granville Waldegrave 
— had told at my family fireside in Northfield the tale, 
among other things, of his father's conversion and 
ministry in St. Petersburg. Moreover, on a morning 
just before we left England the last time, we had the 
privilege of being invited to "conduct family prayers" 
with Lord Radstock, in his home, while Walde- 
grave and his sister served us afterwards with break- 
fast and spoke of our anticipated visit to Russia. So 
this visit to the scene of the elder Radstock's immortal 
service in the palace of Princess Leven afterwards 
afforded me much satisfaction. 

We made two visits to the Royal Library, the 
possessions of which are very rich in ancient manu- 
scripts ; but the chief treasure is the original copy of 
Tischendorf's Scriptures complete, supposed to date 
from 350 A. D., found in the convent at Mt. Sinai, in 
Arabia. This I was permitted to take out of its case 
and handle. It is richly bound in red Turkey morocco, 
and in every way a beautiful piece of work. Having 
long before seen the Vatican manuscript at Rome, the 
Alexandrian and others in the British Museum, I was 
pleased beyond measure to see and examine this codex, 
which was so helpful to confirm the reliable readings 
of ancient Scripture, such as Westcott and Hort, Tre- 
gelles, and others, have devoted their lives to estab- 
lishing. 

Mr. Fetler took us with him for a brief visit to the 
historic old Moscow, the most Russian of all Russian 
cities. It was a long night's journey on a comfortable 
train. We called at the chapel occupied by the little 

297 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Baptist church, but we essayed no meeting there. The 
Kremlin was our immediate objective. It is said, "Above 
Moscow is only the Kremlin, and above the Kremlin, 
heaven." It is a walled section of the city, very 
Asiatic in appearance, and inclosing- a district perhaps 
a mile square. The wall is crenellated, at least in part, 
and at intervals there are commanding towers. On one 
side runs the "Moscau" River. Away on the western 
horizon, say ten miles distant, lie the Swallow Hills, 
from which Napoleon caught his first view of the city, 
but in flames, that portended his defeat and his dis- 
astrous retreat. Along the wall, on one side of the 
street where we passed, lay piles of French cannon, 
hundreds of them, captured from the French, souvenirs 
of the ultimate victory and final expulsion of Napoleon's 
raid. Some of the churches are wonderful specimens 
of architecture, especially the Church of our Saviour, 
which cost seven million five hundred thousand dollars. 
It has a gold-covered dome. It is adorned with mar- 
velous paintings by artists of all periods, and among 
moderns by Verestchagin, who lost his life to the 
Japanese from the overturned battleship in the bay 
near Port Arthur. 

One of the most impressive places is a large mauso- 
leum, the Church of the Archangel, near the summit of 
the Kremlin, where lie, entombed in copper enclosures, 
the dust of a score or so of the Romanoff monarchs, 
from Ivan the Terrible down. Adjacent to this is the 
royal sanctuary, in which all Russian monarchs are 
married and crowned. A little way outside this lies the 
great bell, twenty- four feet in height, with the section 
broken out large enough almost for a man to walk 
through, and the tongue, or clapper, as large as a mill- 
post. We thought of the picture in our primary geog- 
raphies, and were content to have seen the king of 
bells. After a brief stop at the Hotel Berlin, where 
we saw the names of some of our missionary friends, 
en route to China over the Siberia line, registered, we 
took another train back to St. Petersburg. 

Before leaving the great northern capital, we took 

298 



SCANDINAVIA AND RUSSIA 

occasion to visit the Czar's winter palace, the largest 
in the world, containing one thousand and fifty-nine 
rooms. We were conducted by our dear and most 
valued friend, Madame Baroness Yasnovsky, Mr. 
Fetler's treasurer. We gave a forenoon to this visit. 
It was a marvelous affair, very extended with reception- 
halls, grand salons, state chambers, dining-halls, art 
repositories, etc. What impressed me most about it 
was to observe the vast array on the walls of solid 
silver and gold-embossed plate, numbering hundreds, 
with inscriptions studded with diamonds or other costly 
gems, the tributes given to various Muscovite monarchs 
by other princes of all lands, even from the ends of 
the earth. The inscriptions to Nicholas, to Alexander, 
to Queen Catherine, and so on down the list to Czar 
or Czarina of "all the Russias," meant far more to 
me than I ever before thought they could. No wonder 
at the colossal pride that rules the dynastic thought of 
the Russian court. Moreover, the endless display of 
battle scenes by the first artists, in commemoration of 
past victories Russia has achieved, impressed me with 
a historic martial valor I would not have thought possi- 
ble to this land of the frozen north, however great are 
her territorial limits. 

I went on different occasions with Mr. Fetler to 
visit three of the chief ministers of Government, with 
whom he was laboring for greater freedom for his 
simple gospel message. These were the Minister of the 
Interior, the Minister of Religions and the Prime Min- 
ister, His Excellency, Kokovtseff. They all received us 
courteously, especially the Prime Minister, Kokovtseff, 
who seemed to me a rare gentleman. He rose from his 
chair and met me in the center of the room as I was 
ushered into his presence ; and he spoke good English. 
He asked after my welfare, how long I was to stay in 
Russia, and then expressed his regret that there had 
arisen a misunderstanding leading to the interdiction of 
my speaking at Baptist meetings. He assured me it 
was a misunderstanding of my purposes in coming to 
Russia, as I explained I was on a third world tour of 

299 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

observation only, and I was harmless. I explained that 
the suspicion that I was in Russia for purposes of pro- 
moting an international Baptist congress was an unwar- 
ranted inference, that I should be leaving in three or 
four days for a winter in Berlin, and thence on around 
the world, entirely unofficially. He not only expressed 
regret at the misunderstanding that had arisen, but also 
that I was making so short a stay in Russia, and within 
a week he ordered Fetler's chapel in Riga opened, 
which had been closed, partly on my account, by the order 
of the Governor of that province, and over the Govern- 
or's head. He also spoke regretfully on the temporary 
rupture of treaty relations with our Government, saying 
he hoped the difficulties would soon be overcome, and 
he spoke very warmly of the esteem in which our 
Ambassador, Curtis Guild, was held among them. For 
the verification of my purposes in Russia, I referred 
him to Mr. Guild as my long-time friend, who would 
confirm all I had said to him. Mr. Guild welcomed 
us at the embassy to tea, and had authorized me to 
refer the Prime Minister to him on all questions that 
concerned me. Mr. Guild also sent me a beautiful 
silk flag, "the Stars and Stripes," which I heartily 
cherished as a choice memento, especially inasmuch as 
my friend since, after returning to America, has passed 
away. He was a gallant friend, and a man of uncommon 
ability in theological thought. Indeed, and singularly 
for a layman, he had conferred on him by the Univer- 
sity of Geneva the degree of Doctor of Divinity. 

Two little private, upper-chamber devotional meet- 
ings, with about a dozen devout souls, mostly English, 
present, were much enjoyed by Mrs. Mabie and myself. 
Although "the doors" in a peculiar sense were "closed," 
the risen Lord, though invisible to mortal sight, was 
with us. But alas for poor Russia ! The Bible, though 
allowed to circulate, is really a closed book, with no 
pretense of preaching by her ecclesiastics nor religious 
instruction of the masses. Only ten per cent, of her 
vast population can read. It is but the dress of the 
priests, the pomp of her altar ceremonies and her prac- 

300 



SCANDINAVIA AND RUSSIA 

tical deification of the Czar, about as superstitiously 
worshiped in Russia as the Mikado is in Japan, that 
hold her masses. There is no public-school system, 
while the revenues of the Government go to the up-keep 
of her militarism. She worships the "ikons," or images 
of the saints in her long history, and is largely a pagan 
nation. When, on a night train for Konigsberg via 
Wilna, we had come to the hour of departure, a com- 
pany of elect souls, together with Mr. Fetler and 
Madame Yesnovsky, having come to see us of! and to 
load us up with flowers, sweetmeats, etc., we left the great 
northern capital with a deep sense of the tragedy in 
Russia's situation. 

Note. — Since the above chapter was in type the long- 
impending revolution in Russia has occurred. The Czar 
has been forced to abdicate, the duma is in control, the 
United States, England and France have recognized the 
new regime, and the world awaits the outcome. Possi- 
bilities of many kinds are involved. May Providence over- 
rule all for the great Slavic races and for all mankind. 



301 



XXXI 
A WINTER IN GERMANY 

A NIGHT'S run from St. Petersburg brought us 
to Konigsberg, the capital of old Prussia, the 
center whence has emanated all that is now 
understood in military circles as imperial Germany. 

We were in Germany for about three months — 
months of the greatest interest from a variety of points 
of view. I wished particularly to observe the religious 
life, the university life, to visit the homes and haunts 
of Luther, to see for myself some of the fruits of the 
highly intellectual but prejudiced forms of speculative 
doubt, as well as to discover some of the wholesome 
reactions towards faith, and, incidentally, to take in 
features of natural beauty in the country and remains 
of the old medieval feudalism, the marks of which are 
still so much in evidence. 

The places visited in general were Konigsberg, Ber- 
lin, Dresden, Herrnhut, Halle, Wittenberg, Leipzig, 
Cassel, Marburg, Cologne, Frankfort, Erfurt, Worms, 
Weimar, Jena, Blankenburg, Nuremberg, Munich and 
Ober-Ammergau, besides the trip up the Rhine. The 
Germany that we saw, under such serene conditions, 
almost moves me to tears as I think of the convulsions 
that have recently occurred, and of the manner in 
which myriads of her people have been submerged in 
blood, and for what real or worthy end? 

My interest in Konigsberg was first to come into 
contact with our Baptist interests in the place, which, 
next to Berlin, are the fullest of promise. There are 
four good, strong Baptist churches. I occupied the 
pulpit of the First Church, speaking to attentive audi- 
ences on Sunday, both morning and evening. We dined 

302 



A WINTER IN GERMANY 



with Pastor Herrmann, and met about his table a number 
of his intelligent, uniformed deaconesses. 

Konigsberg was for his whole life the home of 
Immanuel Kant, the "father of modern philosophy." 
Indeed, he scarcely ever went out of the town. He 
brought both values and mischief to the world of 
thought, particularly in his own land. There is a fine 
statue of Kant in the little park at Konigsberg in front 
of the university, in which he was so long a professor. 
His well-known sentiment, "Two things there are, 
which, the oftener and the more steadfastly we con- 
sider, fill the mind with an ever-new, an ever-rising 
admiration and reverence: the starry heaven above, the 
moral law within," is also displayed on a tablet against 
the wall surrounding the grounds of the ancient castle 
— "the schloss" — which the Kaiser occasionally occupies, 
in turn with many other palaces. This "schloss" is 
situated on the acropolis of the place, which gives the 
name to the city — "king's mountain." After four or five 
days we went on to Berlin. We first quartered our- 
selves at the Evangelical Hospitz, near the "Branden- 
berg Thor," or gate. There we received many delight- 
ful callers — pastors, students, American and German 
friends. But later we went to the private pension of 
Miss Ellen Hunt, a New York lady, who left Berlin 
at the outbreak of the war and came home. She had 
conducted a homelike boarding-place for twelve years 
at 11 Kleist Strasse, near Nollendorf Platz. 

The American church was located in this same 
quarter. So, it made a convenient and very genial 
Christian home for us while we were in the city. Dr. 
C. A. Dickey, a Presbyterian minister, had been for 
twenty years its popular pastor. While he was now in 
retirement, and a new man had succeeded him, still Dr. 
Dickey was in many ways most dependable for counsel 
on things German. I occupied the pulpit one Sabbath, 
and during the service a singular thing occurred. 

I was speaking with considerable glow on faith. 
All at once a man sitting in the back part of the church 
arose from his seat and posted firmly up the side aisle, 

20 303 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

making, evidently, for the pulpit. He came round in 
front of the desk, stretched out his hand to me for a 
shake, and exclaimed: "I believe what you are saying. 
I believe. God bless you." I took his hand and re- 
marked: "Thanks for your good wishes. Now, you 
take a seat right there and allow me to finish this 
sermon." He promptly subsided. Having a mysterious 
little box in his hand, some of the people feared he 
might have a bomb in it. But he quietly sat down. 
Of course, it made quite a ripple of excitement, 
although I made but little of it. He was a simple- 
hearted enthusiast, who had been wonderfully converted 
from a worthless sort of life. He was an Englishman, 
and now felt called to convert unbelieving Germans. 
He was a bit off balance, but he had at least the 
courage of his convictions. 

During our period here several American "exchange 
professors" were in Berlin, and they, also, gave lectures 
at the chapel, which we heard. The church, with its 
interesting constituency, was a pretty representative 
body of people, and quite a center of social interest in 
the city. 

Soon after locating in Berlin, I came into touch 
with quite a number of our Baptist ministers. Chief 
among these was Rev. Karl Mascher, of Steglitz, a 
large suburb of the city, and general secretary of the 
Cameroon mission. His wife was an English lady, 
daughter of Rev. Fuller Gooch, of London, a well- 
known pastor. Brother Mascher was very familiar 
with the Baptist situation and the pastors throughout 
Germany, and, in fact, the Continent generally, as he 
traveled so widely in the interest of his African mission. 
He was also a very fine interpreter, and served me 
repeatedly in this capacity. He also went with me to 
various churches, even to Dresden and Herrnhut. He 
was practically at my elbow for all sorts of help during 
the period of our sojourn. My wife and I were fre- 
quently at his home and table. He was at the Stock- 
holm conference later, and the official German inter- 
preter there. He was also at the World's Sunday-school 

304 



A WINTER IN GERMANY 



Convention at Zurich, and at a great rally in the 
Baptist church interpreted for Bro. F. B. Meyer, 
myself and others. He was at my side at the Blanken- 
berg conference, to which reference will be made 
further on. He assembled a gathering of Berlin Bap- 
tist ministers, and of other brethren not Baptists, at 
his home to meet me. No man could have been more 
friendly, whole-hearted and helpful. While we were 
in Germany he was among the foremost of many friends 
we met that refused to believe, despite all rumors and 
premonitions to the contrary, that the two nations, 
Germany and England, must, sooner or later, come 
into terrific conflict. At that time the Balkan war was 
on, and it seemed to us that there was a widespread 
satisfaction with the progress in the councils in London 
that so successfully localized that strife. However, it 
was then felt to be certain that if Austria became 
involved, Germany would have to make common cause 
with her. With Brother Mascher at my side, I preached 
at three of our leading Berlin churches ; viz., at the 
First Church — Brother Simoleit, pastor ; at the Second 
Church, in charge of Brother Weerts ; at the Steglitz 
Church ; with a group of students at the university, and 
in one or two other churches. These meetings included 
a large rally of Baptist young people at the First 
Church, which I addressed on the appeal of Foreign 
Missions to the young people of our time. The meeting- 
had been thoroughly worked up, and the large First 
Church, galleries and all, was literally packed with 
people. How those Berlin Baptists did take us to their 
hearts ! and our undying love goes out to them, what- 
ever disturbances the war may have wrought. 

While in Germany I made a point of coming into 
intelligent touch with typical forms of its university 
life. I had neither time nor equipment to do justice 
to any thorough lecture courses. I had studied German, 
off and on, since college days, and continued its study 
diligently through private tutoring, daily reading of the 
papers, etc., for months together while in the country. 
I was almost daily in contact with American students 

305 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

who were taking lecture courses, and I went repeatedly 
to the lecture-halls and heard for myself: and I had 
considerable access to the notes of student friends, so 
that it was not difficult to get the trend of what was 
being taught in the leading lecture-halls. 

I was in several university centers : in Berlin, Halle, 
Leipzig, Marburg, Gottingen and Jena; in some of 
them for weeks together. I heard men like Harnack, 
Deissmann, Seeberg, Kaftan, Strack, Schaeffer, Ihmels, 
Kittel, Althaus, Wundt, Budde, Herrmann, Bornhausen, 
Julicher, Titius, Weinal, Lutgert and Hausleiter. And I 
came into pretty close touch with Haeckel, Eucken, 
Ostwald, Loofs, Rade (of the Christliche Welt), and 
some other English-speaking men in Switzerland on 
their vacations, where we had much converse, and I 
got their real viewpoints. 

I found Richter, the great authority on missions 
since the passing of Warneck, and whom I came to 
know at the Student Quadrennial Convention in Roches- 
ter in 1908, very friendly and helpful. He is now 
lecturer on missions in Berlin University. He was the 
means, unexpectedly, of securing for me an invitation 
to a complimentary breakfast at the headquarters of 
the Berlin Mission Society, and a similar one from the 
Gossner Society. He also gave me courteous intro- 
ductions to leaders in the annual Foreign Mission con- 
ference, which met at Halle, in Saxony, the year I 
was there. At this great meeting, fairly ecumenical 
in its way, I was made much at home, particularly by 
Professor Hausleiter, the president for that year. I was 
invited to a missionary breakfast at his home, where 
I met a dozen or so returned missionaries from coun- 
tries like India, China and Africa, and saw men who 
were in touch with our own Baptist workers. While 
it would have been an utterly unheard-of thing to 
invite a Baptist to give an address, yet there were 
many who would have been glad to have me speak. In 
fact, I was invited back to Halle to give an extended 
address at a monthly tea-meeting of consecrated stu- 
dents at Professor Hausleiter's home. A Professor 

306 



A WINTER IN GERMANY 



Goertes, now in Bonn, interpreted for me, while I 
spread out before them our own Asiatic missions. I 
was also invited to Halle a third time, to address a 
meeting of the Y. M. C. A., to which those same 
students also came. I found the whole tone of the 
Saxony conference, in which twenty-seven foreign 
societies were represented, to be evangelical. 

Several things before suspected came pretty clear 
to me respecting the universities. First among them 
is this: it will always put a heavy strain upon an 
American student especially to go to Germany for his 
standards in religion, who has not previously passed 
deeply into the inner experience of things religious. 
While I would be among the last to disparage the place 
of clear intellection in a moral being, yet it should 
never be forgotten that Christianity, unlike any other 
religion in the world, presupposes elements in faith 
vastly deeper than mere intellect can afford; i. e., it 
involves the mystical element in Christian experience. 
But in the typical German university, religion is viewed 
primarily as a speculative matter pertaining to the 
realm of mere opinion. The intellectual per se is 
apotheosized.* True, Germany, on its Pietistic side, is 
mystical enough. But the deeper mystics have little 
use for the universities, anyway. They are state affairs, 
and for the most part so secular that the more earnest 
evangelicals react from them wholly — probably too 
much so — so that they often become rather narrow. All 
the same, the point I am making is true. If a student 
from abroad, with his beard ungrown, in the callow of 
a mere opinionated state, and who knows a little of 
primary German, expects simply to swap off his former 
ancestral faith, which is at the root of all that is best 
in the life and institutions of our free America, he is 
pretty likely to be misled religiously, and he will gain 
little of value to carry back to his home land. Too many 
wrecks and derelicts of that kind are afloat. 



* The barbarous and ghastly dueling practices so popular in the uni- 
versities were fast displacing moral ideals in the interests of savagery and 
imbruting and obsessing the nation for lustful wars of aggression. 

307 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Again, I found that in most cases the ambitious 
youth who goes prepossessed, as he commonly is, with 
bad advice from unwise teachers at home as to the 
values of mere up-to-dateness in radical opinion respect- 
ing criticism, which as yet he himself has proved no 
capacity to test, he will spend his time, a little in one 
university and a little in another, sampling the various 
brands of speculation, and he will really get nothing 
worth going after. A mixture of Berlin, of Marburg, 
of Gottingen, of Jena and of Heidelberg — in other 
words, of Harnack, Wellhausen, Julicher, Weinal and 
Troeltsch — is a pretty indigestible mental salad for the 
vealy type of American I have seen trying to dispose 
of it. 

If a man really wants something worth while, con- 
sonant with the best that time and the experience of 
the church have proved, and will settle down with men 
like Deissmann, Seeberg, Strack, Xhmels, Hausleiter, 
Schlatter, Feine, Herrmann or Lutgert for consecutive 
years, and meanwhile not get a swelled head, there may 
be value in it. But the value is not in the Ph.D. he 
will bring home, nor in the new airs he may take on. 
My observation in Germany satisfied me that the 
typical university professor, most of whom do not 
pretend to have learned the English language — the 
language in which the ripest experiential Christian 
thought of the ages has been expressed — can never 
become a broad man in the true and balanced sense 
of the word. The boasted "academic freedom," after all, 
is rather academic bondage — bondage to the monar- 
chical, absolutist, militaristic state. If the oncoming of 
the present war, beyond all question deliberately pre- 
cipitated by Germany's militarism, at this time the 
ruling influence, absolutely supreme there, has taught 
anything, it is that the university, as subsidized and 
retained by the Kaiser's military caste, is anything but 
academically free. Note the ablest reply I have seen 
on that subject by Dean Church, of the Carnegie Insti- 
tute, Pittsburgh, in answer to the appeal of German 
university professors to university men in America. All 

308 



A WINTER IN GERMANY 



this illustrates the old principle, unalterably true: "Ye 
cannot serve two masters [at least, at the same time]. 
He that is not with me is against me." 

The simplest and most whole-hearted expression of 
religious life that I saw in Germany was in an evan- 
gelical conference held in Blankenberg. This is in the 
"Thuringer Wald," not far from Jena and Weimar. It 
is the early home of Froebel, the great reformer in 
child education. He here built his first simple building 
for the purpose, and the visitor is shown his dwelling- 
place, a small museum with relics of his work and time ; 
and there is in the village a simple but appropriate 
monument to his honor. The conference owns a fine 
property of several acres, on which are disposed seven 
or eight simple but very pretty buildings, painted white 
with blue trimmings, and choice mottoes of Scripture 
painted on the gables ; such as, "God's Love House," 
"Faith Hall," and the like. 

To this conference I was invited soon after getting 
a little acquainted in Berlin. My friend Mascher is a 
very influential member of its managing committee, 
and sustains all sorts of cordial relations to Christian 
workers on the Continent and in England. Such 
Englishmen as F. B. Meyer, Dr. Guinness, Samuel 
Wilkinson (of Mildmay), Fuller Gooch (father of Mrs. 
Mascher), Lord Radstock, and other men of their kind, 
had been there before me. 

The movement stands for things as notably spiritual 
as does Northfield or Keswick. It was instituted by a 
very devout woman, Miss von Welding, seconded by 
Miss von Bliicher, descendant of the general of Water- 
loo fame. The attendants are made up of all classes, 
whether in the state church or out of it. Counts and 
countesses lend their support to it, and multitudes of 
the simple people of the country, descendants of the 
Pietists, deaconesses, "Inner Mission" people, evangel- 
ists, colporters, etc., are among those who, year by year, 
frequent the place. I was invited to give three ad- 
dresses, one on "The Life of Faith" — a personal testi- 
mony; one on "Method in Soul-winning," and one, 

309 



FROM ROMANGE TO REALITY 

"Missionary Night," on "Gospel Triumphs in Asia." 
Mr. Mascher interpreted. Numbers came forward at 
the close to express their thanks and to invite me to 
other places, like Wiesbaden, or to distant Pomerania, 
on the Baltic. On two evenings, after the meetings 
were closed, on going to my room I found a bouquet 
of roses with a card thanking me for some message 
heard and with a "Schlafen sie wohV tied on the door- 
knob ; and next morning my morgenbrod, or breakfast, 
was brought to my room on a tray. The singing of 
the meetings was wonderful. No cheering of any 
sort, and with no formal or fulsome introductions. All 
speakers were announced on a bulletin-board outside. 

The opening address on the first evening was by a 
devout Bavarian, Baron von Thumler. He spoke on the 
meeting of Joshua with the captain of the Lord's host 
by Jericho: it constituted the keynote of the meeting. 
Among the principal promoters and frequent speakers 
who would occasionally clinch a point was old General 
von Viebahn, a survivor of the Franco-Prussian war, 
but who for years since has given himself to active lay 
evangelism. Himself, wife and two daughters were 
immersed believers who, withal, have never broken 
with the state church. 

Incidentally to my visit to Blankenberg I made a 
visit to Prof. Rudolf Eucken, of the university — the 
distinguished philosopher — and who, with his accom- 
plished wife and daughter, had visited America the 
previous year. He lectured in twenty American col- 
leges. My visit came about this way. Through my 
year of teaching in Rochester, when I was obliged to 
take a class of "electives" through Prof. B. P. Bowne's 
"Metaphysics" (one of Dr. Strong's specialties in 
Theism), I became interested in Bowne — the one man 
of all I am familiar with who has satisfactorily ana- 
lyzed, criticised and restated the real value of Kant. 
About that time some of Eucken's works were coming 
out in English. I read many of them, and soon saw 
that he was much in line with Bowne ; i. e., Eucken, like 
Bowne, was profoundly theistic, if not Christian. I 

310 



A WINTER IN GERMANY 



also read every review of him I have caught sight of 
since. Eucken is pre-eminently the one philosopher 
who treats philosophy, not as a mental speculation, but 
as a philosophy of life — the entire man; intellect, con- 
science, feeling, will— in short, a philosophy which is 
congruous at least with Christ and his religion, experi- 
entially understood — the thing which Ritschl strained 
after and largely perverted. When I came to Germany, 
Eucken was the one man I wanted to see and hear. 
Through his reading of my book "Under the Redeem- 
ing ^Egis," I was invited to visit him. I went loaded 
with about twenty leading questions. 

Professor Eucken met me with most effusive cor- 
diality, grasping my hand in both of his. The fires 
glowed on both sides, as we talked on and on, until 
I retired, feeling I had imposed on him. But he 
begged me: "Come again to-morrow, when you will see 
my wife, who to-day is out in the suburbs sketching. 
And our minister will also come to meet you." I 
rejoiced to find such a man in a university center of 
Deutschland! He is, to my mind, a real prophetic soul 
in a dreary, moral and speculative waste. Unitarians 
try to claim him in England and America, but he is 
more and less than they. If one reads his "Christianity 
and the New Idealism," he will see many points of 
great moment. On history he is superb, beyond most 
writers I know on the subject. He has not shown the 
shallowness of those forms of historical criticism most 
damaging to faith and reason. Well, Eucken does not 
say all we evangelicals would say, but he says so much 
we can build on that to us he is a most valuable 
philosopher for Christianity to use. We called together 
on Professor Haeckel, who had recently broken his 
thigh and was still on crutches. He is the one man 
who, as a Materialist, out-Darwins Darwin. But he 
is rather a lonely figure to-day among real scientists, 
even in Germany.* When, in answer to his question 
as to my work, I said "Missions," he answered, "Ah! 



For details of this interview see Appendix "B." 
311 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

practical." But he and Professor Ostwald, of Leipzig, 
who was in the study with him when we entered, did 
most of the talking. At length, when they attacked 
Eucken, he fired up, and he was the "old man eloquent" 
indeed; and, although I could not follow well such 
rapid, intense and electric German, I noted that Eucken 
swept the field. Then he came to my hotel with me, 
said his heartiest Godspeed, and with his characteristic 
"Anf wiedersehen" we parted. 

No single character in the whole history of Germany 
appeals to an American freeman with more force and 
persistency than Martin Luther. So, first and last, we 
made it in our way to visit his homes and haunts. We 
took in the following places, with which his life was 
chiefly connected: Eisleben, where he was born, and 
where he also died ; Eisenach, where he was a choral 
singer and a pupil in Frau Cotta's school; Erfurt, 
where he was a monk in a cell, and where Staupitz 
came to his relief in his mental distress; Wittenberg, 
where he was a doctor of theology, where he nailed 
his ninety-seven theses to the church door, and where 
he burnt the Papal bull under an oak; Wartburg Cas- 
tle, where he was imprisoned by his political friends, 
against harm from the Pope; Worms, where he met 
his trial; Leipsic, where he had his controversy with 
Eck in the Preissenberg tower, and the old schloss on 
the high peak of Marburg, where he met Zwingle 
respecting the real presence in the Lord's Supper, and 
was worsted by Zwingle. I think the only place of note 
that we omitted was Augsburg. For many days we 
almost felt that we had lived with Luther, heard him 
speak, and lament, and sing, and protest, and roar like 
a bull of Bashan. 

"Eine fesie Burg ist unser Gott" (inscribed around 
the top of the high tower of the church in Wittenberg) 
roused us in the morning and sang us to sleep in the 
evening: we read his sentiments everywhere. His 
German Testament was our vade mecum, and the great 
churches were vocal everywhere with his songs and 
suggestions. Truly his stamp is on Deutschland. Bis- 

312 



A WINTER IN GERMANY 



marck alone is his great historic rival, and whether or 
not his name will ultimately stand or fall turns largely 
on the outcome of the present war. 

We were charmed with the Wartburg, situated on 
its lofty conical height, overlooking Eisenach, in the 
very heart of the Thuringian Mountains. The whole 
situation is exceedingly picturesque: and as one looks 
down on the town of Eisenach, studded with charming 
villas on the many terraces, he does not wonder at 
German pride over its landscapes. The castle itself is 
not large, but what I should call cozy and homelike. 
I can well imagine that "Ju^er George," with his 
beard grown long and otherwise disguised, would take 
his so-called imprisonment as a jolly joke. However, 
he did here give himself to Bible translation, and in 
due time came forth fearing the Pope less than ever. 

Worms also afforded me a day of unusual interest. 
The original building in which the Diet was held has 
long since disappeared. The ground is now occupied 
by a gentleman's villa. The monument erected to 
Luther's honor is elaborate and impressive, with the 
figures of several of his friends and supporters disposed 
about him, on the corners of a square dais in rather 
stiff postures. A section of the old brick wall still 
stands, and the little gateway, through which Luther 
was hustled away to save him from expected violence. 
The general impression left upon, the visitor is that, 
while Luther went to Worms with a bold front, he was 
equally glad to escape with a whole skin. 

One of the real shrines connected with the modern 
missionary movement in Continental Europe is at 
Herrnhut, in Saxony, the original home of Count 
Zinzendorf. Here the work of the Moravians in behalf 
of the world's evangelization began. To no place in 
Europe were we more irresistibly drawn. We had for 
companion on the journey our friend, Karl Mascher, of 
Berlin. We were met at the train by Rev. Taylor 
Hamilton, who is the chief official link between these 
brethren and America. He took us to his home, and 
his genial American wife served us to a homelike 

313 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

dinner, including the traditional mince pie, the mince- 
meat having been just brought over from America by 
Mrs. Hamilton. We gave the whole afternoon to the 
survey of the various departments of work and the 
buildings in which they are housed. The chapel, the 
library, rich in literary treasures, and the general offices 
are in Berthelsdorf, while Herrnhut proper is a mile 
or so out. Here Bishop La Trobe, whose acquaintance 
I made in London years ago, and with whom we dined, 
and Bishop Hennig, the present active factotum, have 
their homes, as well as Mr. Hamilton. Here, also, is 
the ancient chapel built by Zinzendorf, in which 
occurred that remarkable reconciliation of parties to an 
early controversy as between the Bohemian and Saxon 
branches of the Moravians. In the old private box, 
really a considerable room, which used to be occupied at 
worship by Zinzendorf's family, Brethren Mascher, 
Hamilton and I spent an impressive season, just at 
twilight, in prayer together. We thanked God for all 
the inspirations that had gone out from that place, and 
we prayed for all forms of mission work now going 
on in all the stations of the broad earth. We also 
visited the village cemetery and the graves of the 
Zinzendorf family — I should think, a dozen or more of 
them in a row — and returned to Dresden. 

Dresden itself is one of the most beautifully situated 
and built of all German cities, but the place is renowned 
for its great art gallery, standing not far from the 
palace of the present king. We were interested chiefly 
in Raphael's masterpiece, known as the "Sistine Madon- 
na," although the great galleries are filled with what I 
think are the finest paintings in all Germany. Among 
them is Hofmann's oil painting of "Christ in the 
Temple," amid the doctors of the law. The uncommon 
light radiating from the face of Christ is exceedingly 
striking, a matter which none of the photographic or 
steel reproductions ever manifest so uniquely. 

Towards the end of February we left Berlin, with 
the Riviera, on the south coast of France, as our 
objective. En route we spent three days at Cassel f 

314 



A WINTER IN GERMANY 



where our Baptist press and publication society are 
located. We had a delightful visit with my old friend, 
Rev. Philip Bickel, D.D., under whose skillful manage- 
ment the Baptist publication work in this place 
was inaugurated and has been conducted. Dr. Bickel 
was far advanced in years and feeble in health, but, 
withal, very ardent in his loving memories of years 
spent in America, and sanguine with respect to the 
purposes of all evangelical and Baptist work in Ger- 
many. Latterly there has been associated with him, 
taking the chief burden, Rev. Abram HoeiTs. To the 
last named brother we were indebted for many cour- 
tesies. He took us one day to one of Kaiser Wilhelm's 
castles at Wilhelmshohe, a large estate, magnificently 
situated, very elevated on the slope of the finest moun- 
tain forest I saw anywhere in Germany. The place 
originally marked some daring ambition of one of the 
relatives of Napoleon — I think Jerome Bonaparte — who 
had thought to make it his castle. But that ambition 
was nipped in the bud. In Cassel, we also much 
enjoyed a Sabbath with the flourishing Baptist church 
in its new edifice. Rev. Wm. Mascher, brother of our 
Berlin friend, was pastor. At the two public meetings 
which I addressed on Sunday my long-time friend, 
Rev. J. G. Lehmann, interpreted. Brother Lehmann is 
at the head of our Baptist Sunday-school Publication 
work. He showed us much hospitality. 

From Cassel we went to Frankfort-on~the-Main. 
We tarried only long enough to see a little of the 
city, especially the old, medieval portion so celebrated 
for its antique architecture. The chief objects of 
interest are the Rathaus, several buildings with very 
high-peaked gables, finely decorated, and the tower of 
the Cathedral Church of the city, which is of red 
sandstone. It is very ornate and impressive, as seen 
through a narrow avenue of old-time buildings, the 
gables of which almost meet as we peer through. We 
had calls from the excellent Baptist pastor and his wife, 
and we were dined at the home of one of his leading 
parishioners. A fine old bridge spans the river, and 

315 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

on one of the piers, within an outward curving balus- 
trade, stands a fine statue of Charlemagne the Great. 

Our next point of interest was Nuremberg, which 
we reached late on Saturday night, and there we 
tarried over the Sabbath. We attended the morning 
service at one of the great state churches, and wit- 
nessed the confirmation of several scores of children. 

For historic and antique interest, Nuremberg ranks 
very high. The old town is surrounded by a brick 
wall, with many impressive towers and arches over 
waterways that carry one back several centuries in his- 
tory. Nuremberg was the home of Albert Durer, the 
great artist. We visited his home, filled with relics 
of his artistic pencil and brush. We also went to the 
home of Hans Sachs, the poet and artist in other lines. 
The schloss on the heights above the town — another 
of the Kaiser's numerous abodes on occasions — is won- 
derfully situated, and we greatly enjoyed passing up 
the quaint staircases — some of them outside the build- 
ing — and wandering through the various chambers and 
boudoirs. Adjacent to the palace is shown a most 
gruesome old prison-house, filled with all imaginable 
implements of torture, more than one ever heard of. 
We were glad to get away from these horrid chambers, 
trusting that in no dreams of the night would the 
suggestions awakened by them ever arise to haunt us. 

From Nuremberg to Munich! Of course, Munich 
is one of Germany's marvelous cities. It is the home 
of music and of art in numerous forms. Its two 
chief galleries of paintings— the Pinothek — however, 
were to me far less interesting than the one at Dres- 
den, although many had been saying to us, "Wait until 
you reach Munich for the art of Germany." Apart, 
however, from some of the boldest conceptions of 
Rubens, illustrative of the cosmology of the Bible, 
which certainly display a bold and rare imagination, I 
did not care for much of it. One night I heard the 
Passion music of Bach, and I am bound to say it was, 
on the whole, the most impressive performance in that 
line to which I ever listened. Not only was the music 

316 



A WINTER IN GERMANY 



wonderfully adapted to the Scripture sentiments ex- 
pressed, but the poetical selections setting forth the 
experiences of the Christ of Calvary, and the human 
responses befitting them, gripped me with tremendous 
power. The tenderness of some of those selections, I 
think, has never been excelled. I stood throughout the 
three hours of the performance. For the first half- 
hour I thought I should drop from sheer weariness, but 
the next two hours I quite forgot my weariness, so 
enwrapt was I with the sentiment, into which, of course, 
my own heart read the atonement. 

In Munich we had, also, delightful fellowship with 
the pastor of the little Baptist church, whose people I 
addressed at a mid-week service. This pastor, having 
in mind the traditional impression which Americans 
often carry home of the relative harmlessness of beer 
drinking, insisted on taking us one night — a party of 
four — to an enormous drinking-hall. It seems that at 
a certain season of the year the German population of 
Munich, in large part, give themselves, the whole of 
two weeks, to the drinking of beer in large quantities 
during the night, to say nothing of what they may 
consume during the day. In this particular quarter to 
which we went it is said ten thousand people, both 
men and women, give themselves over to drinking 
throughout the night. There are girl attendants, rilling 
the great steins drawn from large hogsheads of the 
celebrated Munich beer. The number of these steins 
that a debauchee will consume ranges from fifteen 
upwards, and the stein holds about one quart. People 
who say that there are no slums and no drinking to 
excess in Germany, even behind the most artistically 
designed marble fronts, would find the opposite to be 
true, under such a demonstrator as we had in this 
pure-minded pastor, and he a native of the country. 
He, at least, believes that this one vice of beer drinking 
threatens the moral ruin of the nation. We were glad 
to escape from the mammoth and ribald place. 

From Munich we went to Ober-Ammergau. It 
was not the season of the famous Passion Play, but 

817 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

we were entertained at the pension of Anton Lang, 
who, since Joseph Meyer passed, has enacted the part 
of Christus in the Passion Play. A welcome awaited 
us on the part of his cheery, attractive, English-educated 
wife and her children, and we were soon made at home. 
Mr. Lang appeared not long after, and, as they both 
spoke perfect English, we got on easily together. We 
spent Easter Sunday in the village, and attended the 
service at the church, the only one in the place, and, 
of course, Roman Catholic. The service conducted was 
"very high mass" to begin with, with very entrancing 
music. Frau Lang was chief soprano singer. There 
were endless impressional ceremonies that to me were 
more like Buddhism than aught else, but there was a 
very rare sermon preached in German, that I could 
well understand, on the resurrection of our Lord; and 
it seemed to me thoroughly Christian. I was also 
pleased to find that Mr. Lang made much of the 
resurrection in his personal faith — that he had a real 
atonement — and seemed to me in every way a highly 
Christian man. He said grace at his table, and he 
seemed to me to be striving to live the life of self- 
crucifixion with Jesus, that he might attain to the 
resurrection of the just. His library was well stocked 
with books on the cross, and I gave him my "How 
Does the Death of Christ Save Us?" We were taken 
over to the great theatre, and in the anterooms were 
shown the marvelously rich and costly costumes used 
by the numerous participants in the play. They were 
very brilliant, but, after all, expressing only the material 
side of things, which is all they themselves can do, 
unless one reads meanings into them. Recently we 
heard Mr. Lang has lost his life at the battle-front. 

We next passed southward to Innsbruck, and 
through the sublime Tyrol Alps. There was tremen- 
dous majesty displayed by the Alpine monarchs, and 
yet a desolateness, withal, that would be too oppressive 
for me as a summer resort. I much prefer the genial 
Bernese Oberland, which I have three or four times 
visited. Innsbruck itself has various attractions ; first 

318 



A WINTER IN GERMANY 



its scenery and then its medieval monuments. I visited 
only one church, a real museum, in which stood in 
imposing array, I should think, several score of 
armored feudal magnates of the past, the images all 
being of massive bronze construction. The history of 
an important epoch in Austrian life was epitomized in 
these characters. 

Thus closed the most gratifying period we spent 
in Germany, Bavaria and the Austrian Tyrol. 

Note. — An outstanding memory of our sojourn in 
Germany was our visit to Potsdam on Christmas Day, 
where we saw at church the Kaiser and several members 
of the imperial family, including the crown prince and 
Prince Eitel Friedrich. They appeared simple and un- 
warlike enough, although the upper gallery was packed 
with soldiers. 



21 319 



XXXII 
FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND 

OUR visit to these lands fell into two portions. 
Inasmuch as we wished to spend the spring 
following our sojourn in Germany on the 
Riviera, we made our way, first, via Venice, Lugano, 
Switzerland and Genoa, to those coast resorts which 
stud the Mediterranean on the French seaboard. 
These towns are Nice, Monte Carlo, Mentone, Cannes 
and Marseilles. I gave addresses in all these towns 
except Monte Carlo, and the greatest welcome possible 
was given to us as Americans. In Mentone, we of 
course visited the hotel, although we could not see the 
room in which Spurgeon died. We spent several days 
as guests of Pastor Long, of Nice, and had as many 
meetings, both in the pretty Baptist chapel and in the 
McAll Mission Hall. In Cannes I spoke to a crowd 
in a Congregational church. At Marseilles, also, we 
had a most hearty reception, and were graciously 
entertained by a Mr. and Mrs. Faber, very charming 
people. Here, Rev. Mr. DuBary and wife and Rev. 
Mr. and Mrs. Grose, of Marseilles, met us. The 
DuBarys escorted us to their home in Nimes, where 
we spent several days, including a Sunday. DuBary is 
one of our finest men, and a graduate of Spurgeon's 
College. His fine influence in Nimes had assembled 
one of the largest union Protestant congregations I 
have ever seen in France. This was apart from the 
two very genial meetings I addressed in his own church. 
This city is a Protestant center, and the old National 
Presbyterian Church is very strong. We had the 
Nestor of them all, a relative of the distinguished Adolf 
Monod, to offer prayer before I spoke. I gave them 

320 



FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND 

a survey of Asiatic missions. Nimes is also a place of 
early Roman antiquities. It has in it an "arena," or 
colosseum, more complete than the one in Rome, 
although not so large. Nimes has a wonderful ancient 
garden and a pagan temple of pre-Christian times, 
bridges, statues, and the like, and some old ruins of a 
second pagan temple, dating from an early century of 
the Christian era. 

From Nimes we went, via Lyons, Geneva, Thun and 
Dijon, to Paris, much privileged to have met and 
ministered to so many of our Baptist churches and 
pastors in the south of France. 

In Lyons we had a large and interesting religious 
union service. My old friend, Pastor Seigniol, inter- 
preted for me, and came to dine with us at the home 
of our friends, the Quintaros. Mrs. Quintaro herself, 
although at the time at the bedside of her dying sister 
in America, was a former seminary friend with Mrs. 
Mabie in Rockford, Illinois. Her family we found in 
every way most enjoyable. 

In Geneva we were met by Rev. and Mrs. Orial, the 
Baptist pastor and wife. Later I addressed his people. 

In Paris we were warmly received by our many 
Baptist friends, foremost among whom were Dr. and 
Mrs. Saillens ; their son-in-law, Rev. Mr. Blocher, and 
wife; Mr. Andru, and Pastors Philemon, Vincent and 
son. This gifted son has, alas ! just yielded up his 
promising life at the battle- front. We were domiciled 
in the mission home of the Bianqui family, Mr. Bianqui 
being the secretary of the Foreign Mission Society of 
the National Presbyterian Church. I also addressed 
their strong Theological College, and met several of 
their returned missionaries from South Africa. Here, 
also, I met Dr. J. H. Franklin, on his way homeward 
from the Far East over the Siberian route, and together 
we gave attention to some complicated questions affect- 
ing the French mission. 

Our second visit to France, embracing Switzerland, 
came about thus : After a return to England for a 
week, joined by my son, wife and child, who had been 

321 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

living in London, by my daughter Muriel and child, 
from Boston, and by Dr. Catherine, we made our way, 
via Antwerp and Cologne, up the Rhine, to Mainz, and 
on to Basel. Here our party divided, my wife and son 
and family going on to Thun, and my daughter, niece 
and I going first to Zurich to attend the World's Sun- 
day-school Convention, a notable gathering, and afford- 
ing many sweet fellowships. 

Later, we all met at Diirrenast, on Lake Thun, and 
thereafter spent six happy weeks in Hilterfingen to- 
gether face to face with the Bernese Oberland. 

While we were sojourning in Switzerland I made 
a return trip to the north at the end of July to take in the 
World's Baptist Congress, which assembled in Stock- 
holm, embracing a second short visit to Berlin en route. 
At this congress I was privileged to give an address on 
"The Baptist Message to Europe," afterwards printed in 
the Baptist Times, London, and in the Baptist Review 
and Expositor, Louisville. In August I went again also 
to Germany, so far as to make a visit to Professor 
Eucken, in Jena, and also to attend the evangelical con- 
ference at Blankenburg, referred to in the previous 
chapter. 

From Blankenburg, by invitation of Dr. Saillens, of 
Paris, I went down to Morges, on Lake Geneva, 
Switzerland, to attend a similar meeting of the French 
evangelicals. This conference is to these French Chris- 
tians what the Blankenburg conference is to the 
Germans. The meeting at Morges, however, is pre- 
ceded by a Bible institute, carried on for three contin- 
uous weeks. In the institute themes like the following 
were considered: "The Prophets," "The Apostles," 
"The Finality of the Scriptures," "The Bible and the 
Primitive Church," "Moses and History," "Science and 
Revelation," "Missions, Home and Foreign." The 
great Swiss reformers, Calvin, Zwingle and Farel, 
still live in these French people. The Reformed 
Church of France, in its most spiritual and gifted 
pastors, successors to Adolf Monod and Alexander 
Vinet, men like Pastors Besson, Tophel, Malzac and 

322 



FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND 

Morel, and Lortsch, of the Bible Society, finds hearing 
here. Gifted professors, like Neville and Henry 
Devaux, are among the teachers. I was favored at 
Morges with an extended interview with Professor 
Devaux, who, twenty-five years ago, in attending a 
student conference at Northfield, was converted from 
materialism to theistic faith, and who ever since has 
been an outstanding lecturer in France on the "Har- 
mony of Science and Revelation." For full account of 
his conversion, see my article in Record of Christian 
Work, Northfield, for October, 1915. But Dr. Saillens 
is the inspiring leader of the whole conference, and 
one of the most eloquent preachers of evangelical 
truth in all France. He latterly has devoted himself 
wholly to conferences similar to this, in important 
centers in France and Switzerland. The attendance 
at this Morges conference was marked by the presence 
of forty Christian workers from Algeria, and many 
from North Italy, the Waldensian valleys and, of 
course, from wide districts in France and Switzerland. 
I gave three addresses at this meeting, and Dr. Cath- 
erine Mabie also spoke one morning with most telling 
effect respecting the workings of medical missions in 
Africa; and, as representing the Belgian Congo, she 
was peculiarly at home in this assembly. Conversions 
often occur at the great meeting, and many apply for 
Christian baptism. Morges marked the climax of 
inspiring fellowships enjoyed in France, 



323 



XXXIII 
IN ITALY AND EGYPT 

OUR visit to Italy, as well as that to France, was 
likewise made in two parts. The first part 
embraced a brief trip to Venice in the early 
spring. 

Leaving Innsbruck, in Austria, our train threaded 
its way down almost endless canyons and valleys, beside 
plunging water-courses, before we left the mountains 
behind and came out into the level Italian plain. Then 
we crossed a long causeway, built on thousands of piles, 
and we were at the railway station in Venice. A score 
of gondoliers were clamoring at the waterside for 
passengers. We selected one of them, and, after pass- 
ing down the Grand Canal, by many former palaces of 
antique sorts, shot through several narrow and tortuous 
channels, until we drew up to what we were informed 
by our gondolier, in fair English, was the rear end 
of the Continental Hotel. After the ringing of a bell, 
and many shouts as to whether "any one was at home," 
there appeared a head out of a third-story window, and 
a voice told us to enter and come up the three flights 
of stairs. We found a charming English-speaking 
hostess, and at the table very genial associates. Of 
course, the next morning we took in the Doges' Palace, 
with its incomparable frescoes and historic paintings, 
product of the real Italian masters, and the Cathedral of 
San Marco, the new Campanile Tower and the Bridge 
of Sighs. We took several gondola trips, and of course 
peered into the limitless shops of lace-makers, picture- 
vendors, jewelers, and what not. But the real glories 
of Venice are in its history, and one needs to be satu- 
rated with Ruskin and similar writers, and to see the 

324 



IN ITALY AND EGYPT 



marvelous autumn sunsets, which in February we found 
lacking, even in Venice. We were shortly on the move 
again, via Milan, where we took in the cathedral, to 
Como and its peerless lake. Como's banks are marked 
by fine summer abodes, villas and practical palaces, 
artistically built; by landing-places, boat-houses, etc., all 
of stone, and in most artistic forms. The sail of that 
afternoon up Lake Como stands out in its peerless 
way. We passed by train, after nightfall, over to 
Lugano, on another of these charming Italian lakes, 
Maggiore being the largest, but to me the least inter- 
esting of the three. We had several delightful days 
in Lugano. We were domiciled in the German Evan- 
gelical Hospice. In Lugano we met a dear friend of 
former days, pastor in St. Paul and Chicago, Rev. 
Nicholas Bolt, and his charming sister. The two did 
much for our entertainment and enjoyment in this 
pearl of northern Italian-Swiss villages. The mountains 
surrounding the lake are most enchanting. From 
Lugano, we passed to Genoa, visiting the birthplace of 
Christopher Columbus, the famous Campo Santo mau- 
soleums, and several old-time ' palaces and museums, 
scarcely second to those of Venice. Thence we passed 
to San Remo, where Pastor Scola soon found us and 
lodged us in a comfortable hotel. We held a meeting 
in the little Baptist chapel, and I went with him on 
one of the most unique tours, first by rail and then in 
a cart, to a little, squalid Italian village, a sort of 
ruined town, with dilapidated stone houses. But we 
found a house full of people, waiting to hear me speak 
on a week night, through my friend's interpretation. 
I have previously referred to our visit to Switzer- 
land, prior to our final departure to Italy, en route 
to Egypt and the Far East. In this region, on beautiful 
Lake Thun, we spent several weeks for rest, writing 
and making various short pilgrimages to the choice spots 
in the Bernese Oberland, such as Lucerne, Interlaken, 
Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen, and over the Gemmi Pass 
to the valley of the Rhone. It was all familial ground 
to me, from several previous visits, but none the less 

325 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

refreshing to be again for a few weeks within sight of 
those monarchs of the Alps — the Eiger, the Monch, 
the Jungfrau and the Blumlisalp. 

Our chief domicile here was a new pension, the 
"Eigenberger-Schneider," in the little village of Hil- 
terfingen, adjoining Oberhoffen, about a mile from 
Thun. The memories of that spot, amid so entrancing 
conditions, and our sweet family fellowships, having 
three children, a niece and two of our little grand- 
children with us — one since gone to the heavenly 
world — remains as a very precious memory. We re- 
luctantly broke up about the middle of September and 
departed our several ways, some to England, some to 
America, and my wife and I on our way southward to 
Italy, for a second stage of experiences in that fasci- 
nating land of Italy. 

We went first, via Milan, Bologne, Florence and 
Rome, to Naples. Florence is incomparable for monu- 
mental art. We put up at a comfortable German 
evangelical hospice. I need not attempt to describe 
Florence. Merely to mention places like the two great 
galleries of art, the Pitti and the Uffizi ; the Duomo, and 
the several great churches, like San Marco, Santa 
Croce; and the various monumental works of Giotto, 
Michael Angelo, Botticelli and others, is to indicate a 
whole world by itself — the world of architecture, poetry, 
romance, sculpture and painting. As the home of 
Dante, and as the resort of the Brownings, the Trol- 
lopes, and hosts of other literary and artistic characters, 
the place is filled with sentiment, romance and history. 
The great medieval establishments, like the Bargello 
and the palace of the Medicis (still extant), with all 
their gruesome marks of plotting, counter-plotting and 
tragic sorrows, are still in evidence. Personally, what 
interested me most in Florence were the scenes of the 
great Savonarola's activities ; especially his cell, with 
some of its furniture in San Marco's, is still shown, and 
in numerous other cells the frescoes of Fra Angelico 
always attract the visitors. The room in which Savon- 
arola spent his last night, in the Palazzo Vecchio, and 

326 



IN ITALY AND EGYPT 



the place of his execution in the plaza before the 
Palazzio, are the chief things. The great Duomo, in 
which he was wont to thunder forth his utterances 
against Rome's abuses and the political intrigues of 
Florence, and prophesy impending dooms, fills the 
visitor with awe. Of course, we visited the Villa 
Trollope, where George Eliot wrote her "Romola," 
and where numerous great literary lights of all coun- 
tries at times found a congenial home. There were 
two centers of Christian and Baptist work in Florence 
that interested us. We attended a service in each. 
The first was the English work, in charge of Dr. Wall, 
and the other was under the conduct of the American 
Southern Baptist Convention, a most earnest and bril- 
liant Italian, Mr. Angelina, in charge. He had a 
packed house, in improvised quarters in a part of an 
old palace, and he preached with wonderful fire and 
magnetism a sermon, partly religious and partly polit- 
ical, to which all Italian patriots in latter days are so 
given. 

We had a golden, interesting period of a week 
or so in Rome, and did the ancient city pretty thor- 
oughly. It was a comfort to find Rome so improved 
respecting its sanitation and its water supply, which 
relieves present-day visitors of that erstwhile nightmare 
of Roman fever, which years ago so distressingly made 
victims for the foreign cemetery. We, of course, 
sought out, first of all, our Baptist brethren of the 
Richmond Board, Dr. Everett Gill and Rev. J. P. 
Stuart. Dr. Whittingill, at the head of the theological 
work, and editor of an able Christian review, was on 
furlough in America. At the chapel on Sunday we met 
Pres. Benjamin Ide Wheeler and son, of Berkeley, Cali- 
fornia, en route to Athens. We all had pleasant fellow- 
ship together at the missionary homes. Dr. Gill had 
charge of the various stations from Rome northward, 
in Italy, while Brother Stuart had the oversight of the 
work in the south, embracing also Sardinia and Cor- 
sica. We found that this brother alone had not less 
than sixty preaching stations, with which he was in 

327 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

touch through native workers and was on a constant 
round of visitation. It was a great joy to have a week 
of fellowship with these brethren. 

Naples was the last center of interest on the Con- 
tinent that engaged our attention. We journeyed from 
Rome under escort of Bro. J. P. Stuart. This brother, 
being so well acquainted with Naples, and so at home 
in the language, made himself indispensable to us. 
He took us to the Hotel Bristol, away up on an 
elevated site, and introduced us to the most friendly 
proprietor. Bro. Stuart, alas! has just yielded up his 
invaluable life in Liberty, Missouri, while home on fur- 
lough. We found the Italian Baptist Church in Naples 
well located, just off an important street, and in a 
flourishing condition. This interest is under the aus- 
pices of the American Southern Baptist Convention. 
They have a property of their own, and carry on things 
in a style that commands respect. They had also an 
excellent Italian pastor, whom Brother Stuart took 
pains to enlist in conversation with me as much as 
possible. A special rally of the church had been 
arranged. Dr. Barton, of Waco, Texas, then visiting 
Italy, and I made addresses. The service was on a 
week night, and the rooms of the spacious chapel were 
filled with listeners. They had taken pains to engage 
the most expert interpreter that could be found, a 
Waldensian brother of charming parts, and, as nearly 
as I could judge, he gave them our messages con amove. 
Mine had to do with principles which lie at the basis 
of things most vital in adapting the Christian gospel 
to Romanized minds. Those gleaming, black Italian 
eyes, and the universal handshakings which followed, 
were evidence to me that I was understood. 

We took an excursion to the island of Capri, across 
the Bay of Naples. On the loftiest height of this 
charming island the Emperor Tiberias once had a 
country villa, some ruins of which can still be seen. 
We made a hurried excursion to the "Blue Grotto/' 
not far from the landing. The grotto itself, I suppose, 
is natural, but it resembles an excavation, domelike in 

328 



IN ITALY AND EGYPT 



shape, about two hundred feet in diameter. One would 
suppose that the place would be wholly dark, but, on 
the contrary, as a boatman pulls us by means of an 
overhead chain through an entrance so low that we all 
had to lie down to avoid bumping upon the rocks over- 
head, suddenly the whole place was strangely lighted 
up, and with color as azure and soft as the finest blue 
satin. The effect, we were told, was wholly due to 
the entrance of the light through the one low and nar- 
row aperture, and reflected from the water to all 
parts of the cavern. It is a phenomenon, in its way, 
wholly unique. We sailed away about four o'clock 
over to Sorrento, one of the most ideal of Italian 
villages. We spent the evening exploring the town, 
inspecting the various stores, supplied with the finest 
fabrics, the most exquisite inlaid cabinet work, etc. 
In one of the shops we fell in with an old Brookline 
acquaintance, Mrs. George K. Brooks, and her daughter. 
In and about Sorrento are located some of the finest 
villas, belonging to artists and authors of various lands, 
including the home of F. Marion Crawford, an Amer- 
ican. Here Mrs. Stowe laid the scenes of her "Agnes 
of Sorrento." The next day we gave to the famous 
drive along the shores of the Mediterranean, through 
Amalfi, one of the greatest pieces of coast scenery 
anywhere in the world. For miles and miles the 
roadway had been fairly blasted or chiseled out of the 
rocks, and the curves in and out, to get round the 
numerous inlets and pretty bays, fill the beholder with 
wonder at the varied effects of mountain-sides and 
water. This whole region is the resort of painters of 
coast scenery. On the morrow we booked for Brin- 
disi, a long railway journey. En Youte we fell in with 
Rev. Henry Fairbanks and wife, connected with the 
well-known missionary family in Ahmednagar, of the 
Indian Marathi mission, and brother-in-law of my 
long-time friend. Dr. Robert A. Hume. They were 
returning from a furlough in America. After a quiet 
Sunday in a mosquito-infested hotel, we sailed away 
by a swift mail-bearing ship of the P. & O. Line, the 

329 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

"Osiris," to Port Said, Egypt. The seas were mirror- 
like for smoothness, and in places we sailed through 
charming straits between some of the Grecian isles. 

We tarried in Port Said but a few hours, and took 
an afternoon train for Cairo. I had touched there 
twenty- two years before, en route home from India, 
but saw nothing of the mission work. But this time 
we were a full fortnight in the place. During this 
period, in addition to looking about a little, we gave 
ourselves to the missionaries of the American United 
Presbyterian Church, who had been operating in Egypt 
for over half a century, and with marked success. 
Apart from some work done by the Church Missionary 
Society of England, they are practically the only body 
of Protestant Christians carrying on work in Egypt. 
They have a large body of communicants, numbering 
several thousands. They have eighteen thousand pupils 
in schools of various sorts and grades, four thousand 
of whom belong to Moslem families. They have a 
fine college at Assiout, and one at Assouan, at the first 
cataract of the Nile. We have rarely met more choice 
missionary spirits than those we found in the veteran 
Dr. Watson, who has labored a half-century in the 
country, Drs. Alexander, Giffen and Hunt, and numbers 
of gifted women associated with them. And they have 
been winning their way among Moslems by slow and 
tactful processes. The girls' college, with about three 
hundred pupils, many of whom are connected with the 
families of wealthy bankers and business men in the 
city of Cairo, all Moslems, is a superior institution. 
This college is under the conduct of three or four 
of the most competent American women. There is 
also a resident American population, representing 
various business enterprises, in Cairo, and, in part, 
friendly to missions, which adds an element of variety 
and quality to the social life of the mission. I was 
invited to preach on one of the Sunday evenings. The 
audience was made up of many superior people from 
our home land and England. Besides, there were from 
sixty to eighty young Moslems, occupying an entire 

330 



IN ITALY AND EGYPT 



block of seats in a section assigned to them. These 
are always in attendance to a greater or less degree. 
They also come on Monday nights to a lesser meeting, 
in which the points of contact, and also of difference, 
between Christianity and Mohammedanism are frankly 
discussed. A noted professor of the El Azhar Moslem 
University, who had been converted to Christianity not 
long before, was lecturing each Monday night, not- 
withstanding he had undergone severe persecution. My 
old friend, Dr. Zwemer, formerly of Arabia, is now a 
resident in Cairo, and giving himself, through the 
editing of a magazine and much preaching and lectur- 
ing, to the problem of missions among Moslems. 

Among things peculiarly Egyptian which we sought 
out and visited was the Bulak Museum, rich with all 
sorts of finds from the excavated tombs up the Nile. 
The one remaining Cleopatra's needle, standing near 
the site of old Heliopolis, and the university, at which 
it is supposed Moses gained his learning, won our deep 
interest. New Heliopolis, a most artistically laid-out 
and built modern city, also attracted us. Several o£ 
the leading mosques, old Cairo, and, of course, the 
pyramids and the Sphinx, only six or seven miles 
outside the city, came in for attention. The pyramids 
are reached by a tramline, under the guiding hand of 
one Mahmoud, an intelligent Moslem. We engaged 
the traditional camels, and rode up the long incline and 
all about the sandy dunes that surround the pyramids 
and the Sphinx. This was a day of rare interest. 

One episode in connection with our round of the 
mosques I feel bound to relate. On the porch of one 
of the mosques we fell in with an English-speaking 
Moslem, a middle-aged man, who impressed us favor- 
ably, and we took him as a guide. He showed us 
through the grand Alabaster Mosque and the private 
Mosque of the Khedive. The latter was not large, but 
handsomely decorated. Within it were several tombs 
and rich sarcophagi. Several copies of the Koran, in 
wonderful hand-wrought characters and richly bound in 
morocco and gold, were placed here and there beneath 

331 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

costly gold-embroidered cloths. One of these copies of 
the Koran our guide took up and, opening it, pressed it 
to his forehead and then reverently kissed it. He 
afterwards took us to the tombs of the Mamelukes, a 
rather grandiose combination of mausoleums and sanc- 
tuaries, about which the devotees were lounging and 
waiting for "backsheesh" from visitors. 

As we were about dismissing him, our guide re- 
marked: "There is one old ruin of a mosque not far 
from here that you should see, for it is the one after 
which the famous mosque of Mecca is modeled, and, 
besides, its minaret, on a lofty, precipitous height, 
affords the finest bird's-eye view of Cairo to be had." 
So I said: "Our carriage is waiting: come with us and 
we will see it." We found only the walls, with won- 
derful stone chiseled window-frames of a massive sort, 
inclosing a large area with no roof. As we entered the 
place and saw the semblance of the Kaaba, "exactly 
like the one in Mecca," I queried: "Then, you have 
been in Mecca?" "Yes," he answered; "many times." 

During all this hour or more our Moslem friend 
was profuse in his sentiments of devotion to the great 
prophet of Allah and the system promulgated by him. 
As we were ascending the spiral staircase of the half- 
ruined minaret, our friend remarked: 

"There is one thing done at the culmination of our 
annual observances at Mecca that might interest you." 

I inquired: "What is that?" 

"On the last day of the feast we go out onto a 
high hilltop, and there we offer a lamb in sacrifice." 

"Indeed," I answered; "you don't take that to be 
peculiar to Mohammedanism, do you ?" 

"But, isn't it?" 

I replied: "By no means: the Jews had it from 
Abel's time to the end of their national history; the 
Hindus have it. In Kalighat [which we afterwards 
saw], every morning from one to several scores of 
goats are slaughtered in behalf of the devotees who 
bring them to the temple in worship. Christianity has 
the principle, though carried up to a level infinitely 

332 



IN ITALY AND EGYPT 



above mere animal sacrifices, and expressed in the self- 
devotement of Christ in our behalf. Even the Chinese 
have it. For at the high altar of the Temple of Heaven, 
at the winter solstice, the head of the nation has been 
wont to appear, in the interest of his people, for cen- 
turies and offer a bullock one year old, without blemish. 
So, you see, this matter of vicarious sacrifice is prac- 
tically universal." 

He was greatly surprised at all this. 

I next inquired for the reason of this world-wide 
practice. "Why do you suppose it is?" 

He had no answer. 

I then asked: "Is it not on account of the universal 
sense of sin?" 

He did not know. I assured him that was undoubt- 
edly the reason. 

"Now," said I, "I have the most important question 
of all to put to you. Do you know who the real Lamb 
behind all the ceremonialism is?" 

"The real lamb!" he exclaimed. "Is there anything 
more real than the lamb we offer on the hilltop at 
Mecca ?" 

"There certainly is. The lamb you offer there, and 
the other offerings made in India, China, etc., are only 
ritualistic, symbolic at the best. The Lamb I have in 
mind is the deepest reality in our whole universe, and 
at the heart of it." 

"Who is he?" queried our friend, in the most appeal- 
ing manner. 

"Your great Allah, the one we call God, revealed 
in Jesus Christ His Son; He is the 'Lamb slain from 
the foundation of the world.' " 

"I never heard that before, sir." 

"Well, you hear it now, and that is the Christian 
gospel; please do not forget that. We shall never 
meet again in this world: do keep this in mind, that I 
have told you." 

I then added : "As a follower of the Moslem prophet, 
you have believed that the eternal God, your Allah, is 
all power, authority, sovereignty; but your religion has 

333 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

not taught you that there is another side to him you 
call Allah; that he is vicarious love, and compassion 
also; that he has been the supreme Sufferer in this 
universe, for the salvation of Mohammedans and all 
others; and this has been supremely manifested in 
Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son, so that the 
human race could get hold of it." 

Quickly came his reply : "Why don't the missionaries 
teach it?" 

I answered: "Some of them do, and they all ought 
to, and would, if they properly understood their task; 
but, be all that as it may, what you Mohammedans need 
is to have your idea of Allah enriched by the addition 
of the fact that he is also grace as well as power. It 
is this grace, and that alone, that can save any of us." 

The man himself had given me the text, out of his 
own religion; viz., the lamb annually slain at Mecca, 
and widely offered throughout the Mohammedan world 
at the feast of the slain goat — "The Bakar Idh." This 
matter far deeper than his ritual needed to be impressed 
upon him ; viz., the lamblike sacrificial functions which 
are sovereign in Deity, whether called by the name of 
Allah, God or Christ, "who taketh away the sin of the 
world." 

Were I working among Mohammedans, I would 
make the most of a point of contact like this, as I have 
long done with all half-false religionists, rather than 
enter into any debates on the more subordinate matters. 
Once get a man to recognize and respond to this 
central vicarious relation of Deity to him, despite all 
his sins, and he will, ere he is aware, by the Divine 
Spirit, be brought into a savable state. From this new 
center, it will be easy for him to accept the other 
matters corollary to it. 



334 



XXXIV 
IN BOMBAY, TELUGULAND AND MADRAS 

FROM Egypt we shipped, early in October, on the 
P. & O. steamer '"Arabia" from Port Said, through 
the Suez Canal, to Bombay. We were accom- 
panied by Pres. S. B. Capen, his wife and daughter; 
Dr. W. E. Strong; Rev. George A. Hall (grandson of 
the immortal Gordon Hall), with his wife and daugh- 
ter, and several other delegates from the American 
Board to the centenary of the Marathi mission in India. 
I had been requested by our Boston Mission Board to 
represent the American Baptists at this Bombay cen- 
tenary. Our converse was very delightful. Arrived in 
Bombay, we were all met at the landing by representa- 
tives of the mission, bedecked with garlands of flowers 
and escorted in carriages to the chapel in which the 
principal exercises were to be held. Dr. R. A. Hume, 
of Ahmednagar, was the senior in the mission, and, 
being a friend of mine for years, his cordiality did 
much to make us feel at home in the community. I 
participated in two or three of the functions of the 
great occasion. Various other privileges came to me 
incidental to our visit. I was invited, weeks before, to 
give an address to the union monthly meeting of all 
Bombay missionaries, numbering one hundred or more 
members. Out of this meeting grew invitations to 
address various other bodies, or circles, related to this 
one. Included in these was a meeting with the Pratana 
Somaj, embracing many of the educated gentlemen of 
the city more or less open to our western ideals. I met 
a specially select number of cultivated natives, journal- 
ists, barristers, etc., invited by the native pastor of a 
Presbyterian church and his accomplished wife, in the 

22 335 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

manse of their church, for an afternoon tea and an 
address. I also spoke to the Young Men's Christian 
Association. The Rev. H. E. Barrell, pastor of the 
English Baptist Church, also, had been foremost to 
meet me, and he showed us every hospitality in his 
power. One of the deacons of his church and his 
cordial wife, Mr. and Mrs. James Cobban, invited us 
to make their home our domicile during our stay in 
the city. Twice I preached to the Baptist people in 
their new and tasteful edifice which they had recently 
built. It was to us surprising, however, to find that 
the English Baptists had not for long, if ever, carried 
on any distinctive mission work for natives in so great 
a metropolis of India as Bombay. Mr. Barrell, how- 
ever, was so many-sided in his activities, and so cath- 
olic-spirited in general, that he seemed to me, after all, 
a most remarkable missionary in his own personality 
and with his wide sympathies. For a long period he 
had worked bravely on alone, his wife having been 
invalided home to England, in the hope of an earlier 
restoration to health. 

Bombay itself is a great city, wonderfully com- 
posite in population, with most imposing Government 
buildings. The Parsees are largely in evidence. As 
these people are seen driving about with their large 
and beautiful families, they evoke one's interest to a 
marked degree. But they are almost unbrokenly given 
up to their ancient Zoroastrian superstitions, are ex- 
ceedingly clannish, and intolerant of any religious 
breach in their ranks. They are very thrifty in all 
things commercial. They are often called "the Jews 
of the East." 

We made a visit one morning, by courtesy of the 
harbor master, a Baptist brother, to the "Caves of the 
Elephanta," across the broad bay of the harbor. The 
trip was interesting, though the caves were most disap- 
pointing. There is simply a large natural chamber, and 
on the wall within two or three huge obscene carvings 
of some scenes in the imagined life of the Hindu 
Trinity. 

336 



IN BOMBAY, TELUGULAND, MADRAS 

Thence we went on to Ahmednagar, one of the 
principal Marathi stations, where Dr. Hume has long 
lived and labored with great skill and efficiency. I sup- 
pose in times of great famines no man in all India has 
been more earnest and efficient in caring for the multi- 
tudes of orphans, commonly thrown on Christian char- 
ity, than Dr. Hume. Indeed, his schools are filled with 
many who were originally such helpless waifs, but are 
now full of promise for right living and mission 
service. We were entertained at Ahmednagar by Rev. 
Mr. Fairbanks and wife, a brother-in-law of Dr. Hume. 

We found the Ahmednagar station alive with all 
forms of mission work — evangelistic, educational, med- 
ical, theological, industrial and mechanical. The local 
native church numbers twelve hundred or more. It 
had at the time a native pastor, bred as a barrister, one 
Mr. Modac, a Brahman, a teacher in the theological 
school, but supporting himself through his legal prac- 
tice, still carried on in part, as he was uncommonly 
able to do. We had an hour with this dear man on 
the railway the day after our visit, and drew from 
him the rare story of his conversion to Christ. He 
was first impressed by reading the Gospel of John that 
Jesus was the foremost "Guru" of whom he had heard. 
Then, he felt drawn by Christ's wonderful and mag- 
netic sympathy. He was persuaded by degrees that 
what those who responded to Jesus experienced, like 
Nicodemus, the woman of Sychar, the cripple of 
Bethesda, and others, was reproducible in human souls 
to-day, and the world over, and at length he came into 
the peace and fullness of a renewed life. Since then, 
this rare man has been called away, to my real grief. 
We also met, under Dr. Hume's guidance, amid his 
own Christian family, a gifted poet named Tilak, whose 
experience was of the same type as Mr. Modac's. He, 
too, had been led Christward by the Gospel of John. 
This man had once been offered a lucrative position in 
the palace of the distinguished Gaekwar, of Baroda. 
This he promptly declined on principle, preferring to go 
on with his Christian instruction in the mission's theo- 

337 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

logical school, "rather than chant rhymes to a pagan 
court." 

As we heard the unique testimony of the two gifted 
converted Brahmans aforesaid respecting the impres- 
sional power of the Christ of John's Gospel, we could 
but wish that some professors in western theological 
schools, who are given to dwelling on mere speculative 
questions like what they call "The Johannine Problem," 
could have sat at the feet of these two Oriental sages 
long enough to realize that there is something in that 
remarkable Gospel of John of vastly more importance 
than they commonly emphasize; that this Gospel stands 
pre-eminent among the books of the divine library, for 
peculiar experiential conceptions and realizations of the 
surrendered and yet divinely illumined soul in every 
age and every land. Much of what are called "prob- 
lems," on which speculative dilettantes love to dwell, 
would cease to be "problems" altogether if the tests 
higher than intellectual can apply were but tried. I 
mean the tests of a humble heart, of a keen conscience 
and a surrendered will. These tests the Oriental Chris- 
tians have applied, wherever they are regenerate, and 
lead to an appreciation far higher than the typical 
western or Japhetic mind senses, of the mystical element 
in all Christian experience that has ultimate value. 
Divine life in the soul makes short shrift of many a 
mental puzzle. 

Our visit to Ramabai at Mukti was in two parts, 
both en route to Ahmednagar and on the return. We 
were met at the train, as any one will be who goes 
there, by the simple "bullock bus" belonging to Rama- 
bai's establishment. We were driven ten minutes or 
so away and ushered into the simplest "lay-out" of 
grounds. We were shown to a two-room tenement, 
consisting of a simple little sitting-room, with a neat 
bed in it, and a washroom adjoining. Shortly a servant 
came bringing white bread, some bananas and a jug 
of milk. Some kind English assistant — for there are 
several of these commonly on duty — showed us about 
the establishment. This consists of mere rude, low, 

338 



IN BOMBAY, TBLUGULAND, MADRAS 

inexpensive sheds, in which several industries, like 
weaving, lacemaking, printing (in several languages), 
bookmaking, and all forms of household work, are 
carried on. 

There was one good, large building or hall in the 
center of the grounds, where school was being carried 
on and a class of blind girls was being taught. It was 
the monthly "prayer day," and we were taken to one 
of the teacher's rooms, where a prayer-meeting was 
being held by the teachers and assistants. The spirit 
of faith and prayer and zest in Bible study exhibited 
there was very refreshing. The place was a beehive 
of industry and thrift. The plain dormitories, or living 
quarters, for the rescued widows were across the way, 
in a retired place. There were about eleven hundred 
rescued "widows" in the place, superintended mainly by 
Ramabai's competent daughter. Ramabai herself we 
saw but briefly, for she has grown feeble and very 
deaf, and is obliged to deny herself in large part to 
visitors. She was, however, her natural, unaffected 
self, full of trust in God, to whom she looks for every- 
thing. She inquired very tenderly after certain Amer- 
ican friends, and friends of ours also.* No work in all 
India is more deserving of support than that of 
Ramabai, one of the noblest women of the century. 

From Bombay we journeyed to that portion of India 
known as "The Deccan." Our principal rendezvous was 
at Secunderabad, a suburb of Hyderabad, the important 
capital of the native ruler of this Mohammedan district, 
titled the "Nizam." Secunderabad is one of the most 
important military centers in all India. The large 
military cantonment embraces several hundred acres, 
well laid out and occupied with very substantial brick 
barracks for the accommodation of many thousands of 
soldiers. We were received by the Leverings. 

Our mission work in this station, inaugurated by the 
late Rev. W. W. Campbell, has never attained to large 
dimensions, but there are schools, chapels, and a variety 
of services for all classes of people, including soldiers, 

* Ramabai I had earlier met in our home land. 
339 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

that amply justify what we have undertaken. Many 
intelligent Hindus are easily within reach, with whom 
possible co-operation for the betterment of things 
educational, social, and even Christian, can be had. 
Two high types of educated natives, the Hon. Mr. 
Nundy and his accomplished wife, were invited to dine 
with us at the Leverings, who made us so at home in 
the station. Mr. Nundy is a native Tamil, a competent 
lawyer, an LL.D. of Oxford, and an important coun- 
selor to His Excellency, the Nizam. His wife is the 
daughter of the Rev. Dr. Chatter ji, one of the leading 
native Presbyterians of North India. Their points of 
view respecting men and things in Indian affairs were 
very enlightening. 

I was privileged one afternoon to address a most 
interesting congregation of Europeans more or less 
closely connected with the Government. Here, also, we 
met other representatives of our own mission, Mr. and 
Mrs. Albert Boggs, located in Secunderabad, and Rev. 
Frank Kurtz, who had come over from Bezwada to 
meet us. 

We spent an interesting day in a drive through 
Hyderabad, a thoroughly Mohammedan city, and dined 
with some missionaries representing some branch of 
Baptist people — I think the Dunkards — in America. We 
also saw there a native Christian man who had been 
beaten severely because of the decided stand he had 
taken as a Christian, and so breaking with his Moham- 
medan traditions. 

One day we were taken by our hosts, the Leverings, 
on a picnic excursion to the old fortress at Golconda. 
This was full of interest. It was perhaps five miles 
outside of Hyderabad, in the midst of high-lying and 
very broken country, through widespread forms of 
volcanic product. Basaltic rock had been shot up and 
widely scattered by the forces of nature in wild and 
grotesque confusion. The fortress itself was on the 
summit of one of these extended formations. Great 
walls of well-cut masonry, with enormous tanks for 
water, formed parts of the enclosures. The citadel, or 

340 



IN BOMBAY, TELUGULAND, MADRAS 

central "keep," of the fortress was still intact, its whit- 
ened walls glistening in the sunlight and suggesting 
types of life belonging to medieval India. The women 
of our party were admitted to a zenana, located in one 
of the old and imposing tombs adjacent to the fortress. 
The shut-in women were described as a sad-looking 
company, sitting on the floor of that dark and gloomy 
place, with a number of little children grouped about 
them. 

Time was when great treasures of valuable coin 
were found in Golconda, either buried or secreted in 
the very walls of these weird precincts, but at present 
they are a mass of empty ruins, which, if they could 
speak, would tell many a ghastly tale. 

The Deccan, though a difficult field to work, has, 
nevertheless, been strongly impressed by such workers 
as Mr. Campbell, Dr. W. B. Boggs, R. T. Maplesden, 
E. E. Chute, Abram Friesen, Messrs. Unruh, Hubert, 
C. R. Marsh, and others, besides the Leverings, now in 
charge at Secunderabad. Bro. John Newcomb and wife 
have long labored on the edge of this district. 

From the Deccan we went to Hanamaconda, spend- 
ing a pleasant Sunday with Dr. and Mrs. Timpany and 
Mr. Rutherford, meeting the assembled native church, 
and also Rev. Mr. Chute, who was a guest in the 
mission station. We further stopped at Ongole and 
Nellore, making brief visits and giving several addresses 
at each point. It was a great satisfaction to find myself 
again in Ongole, which I had visited in 1891 while Dr. 
Clough was yet in full charge of that immense station. 
But how sorely I missed the great personality who had 
made that region famous, and who, on that earlier visit, 
put everything possible on his field before me. 

Within five minutes of our arrival I had stolen 
away over from Brother Baker's, where we were enter- 
tained, to get a glimpse of Dr. Clough's old and beau- 
tiful garden, in the midst of which, under a spreading 
tamarind-tree, was his baptistery, in which thousands of 
Telugu believers had confessed their new-found Lord. 
In that baptistry I myself, on my first memorable 

341 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

visit in 1891, had buried with Christ in baptism ninety 
converts, and, lonely as the spot was now, it was a 
pleasure to see it again and put up my prayer that the 
old, characteristic scenes might be often repeated. I 
found Miss Evans, of the Woman's Board, in occu- 
pancy of the old bungalow. Most cordially she showed 
me through the rooms so closely associated with my 
earlier visit, the story of which was related in my "In 
Brightest Asia." 

I visited and addressed the high school, in charge 
of Prof. L. E. Martin, son-in-law of Dr. Clough. The 
Jewett Memorial Chapel, erected since I was there, 
was a new feature in the group of buildings which 
fill the spacious compounds. Here, also, I again spoke 
to several hundreds of native Christians, Brahmans and 
other gentlemen, sons of those I had previously ad- 
dressed in a memorable evening meeting described in 
my "In Brightest Asia/' What was my delight, on this 
second occasion, to discover a like sympathetic response 
to my messages. 

In Nellore the Downies were still in charge, as on 
my previous visit, and were cordiality itself in receiving 
us and in preparing our way to the native mind in a 
great variety of ways : in the chapel of the native 
church twice; in the new and commodious high-school 
building, erected by the generosity of Dr. J. Ackerman 
Coles, of New York ; before students ; and also before 
numerous educated gentlemen of the town, and once 
in Chambers Hall. I had large and generous hearings. 
Besides, with the Downies and some of the young lady 
teachers, we were complimented one evening by a 
wealthy native Hindu with almost a "state dinner," 
ordered up from a superior caterer in Madras. Our 
host sent for us an elegant limousine motor car, electric 
lighted, and received us in his new and elegant mansion 
in princely style. 

In Nellore it was pleasant, also, to renew acquain- 
tance with Kanakiah and his wife Julia, two historic 
characters in the mission, but now grown old and 
feeble, yet steadfast in faith. 

342 



IN BOMBAY, TELUGULAND, MADRAS 

Arrived in Madras, we were met at the station by 
Dr. W. L. Ferguson and driven to his mission house, 
"Bishopville," and made most comfortable under the 
genial home-making of Mrs. Ferguson. Here we found 
a social center for a considerable portion of our mis- 
sionary men and women in and about Madras. In this 
home I had several interviews with the student classes, 
of whom there are thousands in the city, connected with 
the many schools. Not a few of them are sincere 
inquirers after truth and reality — some of them pathet- 
ically so. 

My lectures had been announced and arranged for, 
months before, by the painstaking Dr. Ferguson. They 
were given in the historic Anderson Hall, adjoining 
the Free Church College. Here, also, the gifted Cuth- 
bert Hall and the winsome Charles R. Henderson, my 
lifelong friend, had previously lectured. My messages 
were under the general title, "The Finality of the 
Christian Religion." They were more a confession of 
faith than controversial. I spoke on these sub-themes: 
"Personality in Our Universe," "Our Moral Order," 
"Redemption," "The Eternal Word" and "The New 
Creation." At the opening lecture the "Lord Bishop of 
Madras," so called, Dr. Whitehead, presided. He also 
had Dr. Ferguson and myself to afternoon tea, and 
further invited us to dine with him, which I was unable 
to do. Of course, he was full of zeal for Christian 
unity, but, as usual, on the basis of the Episcopal idea 
of conformity to their conventional standards. A far 
deeper unity, which I was careful to affirm, exists 
already among truly spiritual people. 

The fall monsoon, in November, was on, and the 
water came down in tremendous downpours daily, 
often at the very time of my lectures, interfering 
greatly with the attendance. Nevertheless, there were 
some signs of acceptance of my several messages. In 
one lecture I took great pains to meet the mysterious 
problem of the world's innocent suffering. In Hindu 
thought, unillumined by revelation, the answer to this 
mystery is sought in their composite and cruel doctrine 

343 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

of karma and transmigration of souls. This is supposed 
to afford a ground (in what has occurred in the sins 
of a previous incarnation) for the explanation of suffer- 
ings in this life. As over against this I held up that 
the gracious and all-merciful God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, by the very terms of our creation 
and heredity, had resolved to be a sharer for and with 
his creation in these sufferings which he would over- 
rule for higher good. Through such divine participa- 
tion in human woes, entailed by sin, he would redeem 
us — more than restore us — and make us participants 
in his glory. This suffering in Deity, voluntarily in- 
curred on God's part, was the real karma, and also 
atonement. Thus, karma (or retribution, in this sense) 
God transmutes into grace and salvation for us. In 
this view, there are two incarnations that matter; 
namely, the act of God, whereby He, in Jesus Christ, 
enters corporately into our race, and we, by regener- 
ation, are incarnated in Him. Then, also, all human 
suffering is turned to disciplinary value. Probably 
none of my messages went so deeply to the candid- 
minded among my hearers as this one, as several of 
the more thoughtful, who came to me afterwards for 
interviews, told me. Of course, my method was an 
application of the cross-principle in the New Testament 
conception of it, although it was put to them in an 
unusual form; namely, that it represented the whole 
Deity — and not Jesus Christ, separately viewed — as 
entering into the redemptive passion. Here, to my 
mind, is found the real dynamic for securing anywhere, 
and always, in any land, an adequate ethical basis for 
that "repentance which needeth not to be repented of." 
Moreover, in all these lectures I took particular 
pains to make clear that true faith, in any evangelical 
and saving sense, implies that the whole volitional action 
of man, reinforced by the Divine Spirit, is involved; 
that this, indeed, is the central thing in faith in New 
Testament thought. One day two of the more thought- 
ful of my student hearers came to me with inquiries 
on this point. Said they: 

344 



IN BOMBAY, TELUGULAND, MADRAS 

"We had the impression that in most Christian 
thought faith is chiefly the mental, though whole- 
hearted, belief in some theological dictum or concept, 
whereas you have seemed to teach, throughout your 
lectures, that faith involves chiefly the action of the 
will." 

I replied: "That is exactly what I intended to teach, 
and I am glad you understood me." 

"But," answered they, "that is precisely the point 
at which Hindus are weakest. The one thing we can 
not do is to rouse our wills to what you call moral 
action." 

I replied: "It is hard for all men, myself included, 
to live in right terms of will Godward. But that is just 
the point wherein Jesus Christ, by His Spirit, comes 
in to re-create and reinforce our will. 

"All pagan systems have resulted more in paralyzing 
than in quickening the will. Your power of resolution 
is gone ; hence, to a large extent, the power of western 
nations to overcome and dominate you as they have, 
often unrighteously, done. Nevertheless, it is in those 
regions where Christian truth and influence have pre- 
vailed that the powers of will are strongest. 

"Weak, therefore, as you acknowledge your voli- 
tional powers to be, you surely still have enough of it 
left to surrender, to collapse before God, and confess 
your helplessness. 

"Believe me," I urged, "it is in that way, and that 
way only, that you can ever regain the will power you 
have so fatally lost." 

"It is when the soul, by an act of negation of its 
wrong will, vacates to God (or to some moral ideal 
remaining) that the Holy Spirit rushes in, like air 
into a vacuum, to assert His own peculiar and renewing 
power." 

Said Jesus to the lame man at Bethesda, "Rise, take 
up thy bed and walk;" the very thing he could not do. 
But as he looks into the empowering eyes of the Lord, 
something says, "But He thinks I can ; I'll try." And 
as he acts on the command of Christ, he rises and walks 

345 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

away, to his own astonishment, as well as that of the 
bystanders. 

Such is the method of the divine empowerment of 
the human will, in conjunction, at least, with all saving 
faith. So I felt that this point, also, was an element 
accented in my lectures of value to the Eastern mind. 



346 



XXXV 

THE JUDSON CENTENARY 

THE month after our attendance on the meetings 
of the American Board Mission in Bombay, which 
commemorated one hundred years of labor among 
the Marathi people, beginning with Gordon Hall, came 
the centenary observances of Judson's work in Burma. 

After the course of lectures in Madras, we pro- 
ceeded across the Bay of Bengal to Burma. Dr. and 
Mrs. R. A. Hume, of Ahmednagar, the Downies, and 
several other representatives of various missions, accom- 
panied us. 

On arriving at Rangoon we were met at the wharf 
by Dr. W. F. Armstrong, Rev. F. D. Phinney, Herbert 
Vinton and Pastor Sisinger, of the English-speaking 
church. We were escorted to a comfortable domicile 
called Croton Lodge, where we were pleased to find as 
fellow-guests Brethren William Carey and Herbert 
Anderson, of Calcutta ; Dr. Franklin Johnson and wife, 
of Chicago, and Dr. and Mrs. Murphy, of the Orissa 
mission, with all of whom we had delightful converse. 
Our pension was near to the historic Vinton and Bray- 
ton Compounds, and also near to the college, in the 
Cushing Memorial Chapel of which most of the great 
meetings were held. 

On the evening of our arrival, Mrs. Mabie and I 
walked over to the Vinton Compound, where the 
Burman Convention was in session, and as we entered 
the grounds we were accosted repeatedly in the moon- 
light by familiar voices. Among them were those of 
Dr. W. F. Thomas, Dr. W. H. S. Hascall, Mr. Chaney, 
Miss Stickney, and others, joyfully hailing our arrival. 
In a few moments we were in the lobbies of the great 

347 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Vinton Hall, surveying the picturesque assembly of 
Burman, Karen, Tamil and other Indian Christians. 
Our first formal appearance at the convention was 
reserved until the next morning, when Dr. McArthur, 
Mr. and Mrs. Edmands, of Boston (who came via 
Europe), and others, were presented, and each spoke 
briefly. Dr. W. F. Thomas presided. My old friend, 
Thanbyah, sat at the secretary's desk. One of the 
spectacles in Burma is to see Dr. Thomas interpreting 
so freely, in several of the languages spoken by our 
Christians in that land. The variety of forms through 
which he expresses himself, whether in tone, gesture, 
facial expression or bodily gyrations, was astonishing. 
He could adapt himself with lightning swiftness to the 
habits of speech characterizing the several races. We 
Americans were in an excited mood as we rose to give 
our greetings, and the scene before us was most pic- 
turesque: the men in their brilliantly colored skirts and 
turbans, and the women tidily arrayed in white jackets, 
with flowers in their raven black hair. The animated 
expression through the rugged features of some of the 
Burman and Karen preachers was very impressive, and 
indicative of their profound appreciation of their for- 
eign visitors. I can only hint the outlines of various 
meetings which followed for nearly a week in Rangoon 
and for nearly a month in all Burma. On one of the 
days of the Memorial Hall meetings, the achievements 
of the past and the needs of the present were most 
eloquently voiced by various missionaries representing 
the whole body. The addresses of Miss Frederickson, 
Mr. Phinney, Dr. Hascall, and others, were particularly 
strong. Rev. William Carey (the third) gave an ad- 
dress of rare appropriateness and power, as he linked 
the beginnings in Burma with the great triumvirate in 
Serampore, insisting he "felt more like host than 
guest." It was almost like hearing the voice of his 
immortal ancestor. The writer also, on behalf of the 
Board in Boston, which he was commissioned to repre- 
sent, and the representatives of eight or ten other great 
missions, through their delegates from India proper, 

348 



THE JUDSON CENTENARY 

Assam, Siam, China and Japan, brought heartfelt 
greetings. Appreciative words were also spoken by the 
Director of Education and others. The great day of 
the feast was marked by three notable meetings — morn- 
ing, afternoon and evening. At the morning meeting 
there sat upon the platform five survivors of Judson's 
own time, no longer "the little girls," as Judson knew 
them, but now grave mothers of the mission. These 
were Mrs. D. A. W. Smith, Mrs. A. T. Rose, Mrs. 
Brainerd Vinton, her sister (Miss Susan Haswell) and 
Miss Stillson. Each gave most touching reminiscences 
of the Judson they knew, and a graphic paper that had 
been earlier written by Dr. Edward O. Stevens, though 
deceased, reciting the events which he recalled in the 
last days spent by Judson in Moulmein just prior to 
his death at sea, was read. In the afternoon of this 
day the Lieutenant-Governor of Burma, Hon. Sir 
Harvey Adamson, came to preside, with his accom- 
plished wife beside him. They arrived from Govern- 
ment House in a fine equipage, preceded by out-riders 
and accompanied by escorts. Dr. Armstrong led His 
Excellency into the hall to the platform, and I had the 
honor to escort Lady Adamson. The address of the 
Governor was in dignified form, and was a hearty, 
encomium to Judson and the work of Baptists in Burma. 
The audience, made up of the commingled races of 
native Christians, distinguished residents of Rangoon, 
the thirty-eight visiting Americans and the great 
throngs of people, not only filling the auditorium, but 
grouped about dormer windows and some peering 
through the open skylights on the roof, made an 
impressive scene. 

Following the Governor's address came four other 
set addresses : one by Dr. McArthur, as president of 
the World's Alliance; one by Dr. Hume, o'f the Amer- 
ican Board ; one by Rev. Herbert Anderson, of Calcutta, 
and the fourth by myself. Cablegrams had also been 
received from President Wilson and Mr. Bryan, Secre- 
tary Bryan felicitating us on the great occasion. A 
special cablegram, also, from Dr. Edward Judson 

349 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

elicited the greatest enthusiasm. His necessary absence 
from the meeting was much deplored. 

In the evening there was a great concert given by 
the native and Burman Christians, which gave delight 
to us all. On the next day there was a signal meeting 
in the interests of the college. President Kelley was 
in the chair, and addresses were given, through an 
interpreter, by various visiting delegates, including 
myself. To me the contrast between that throng of 
students — about sixteen hundred of them — who came 
by long lines, filing into the hall, and the little band of 
about sixty I had witnessed in Ruggles Hall twenty- 
four years before, was very striking, nor could I feel 
that if the leading powers in our denominational life 
at home could have witnessed that scene they would 
have delayed an hour in rising up to provide funds 
and equipment for the needs of that college for the 
next half-century. To me it is most regrettable that 
the Judson centenary was not seized upon by us in 
America, and by our people in Burma, for placing this 
Rangoon College on its feet. The present proposal is 
to unite it with the new Government university, a ques- 
tionable policy, in my judgment. 

Numerous receptions and demonstrations occurred 
in Rangoon: at the Karen Girls' School in Kemendine, 
at the Vinton Compound, at the Y. M. C. A. Hostel, at 
the headquarters for work among Tamils and Telugus, 
and elsewhere. On Sunday Dr. McArthur preached a 
notable sermon in the English church. 

There were similar proceedings in Moulmein, the 
really most important seat of Judson's personal work. 
There he translated the Scriptures; there he compiled 
his Burman dictionary ; and there he built up his most 
important church. The outstanding meetings were the 
great Sunday services held in Judson Hall. Drs. San- 
ders, McArthur, Mrs. Edmands, and others, gave 
addresses. Three aged Burman women, baptized by 
Dr. Judson, were introduced amid the intensest enthu- 
siasm. Other services were also held in the city in the 
various chapels: one in Morton Lane School, perhaps 

350 



THE JUDSON CENTENARY 

the best equipped girls' school we have in Burma; an- 
other at the Hindu School, carried on by the Arm- 
strongs. An afternoon was spent on the Talain Com- 
pound. Another great morning was devoted to the 
Karen schools, Dr. Bushnell in charge. A party went 
by steam launch to one of Mr. Darrow's outstations 
among the Talains. Another excursion went down by 
steamer to Amherst to visit the grave of Ann Hassel- 
tine Judson, and a most impressive service was held 
about the grave. The Burmans gave a breakfast one 
morning, following exhibits of calisthenic, musical and 
other exercises of all the schools in the place combined; 
and on one of the evenings there was a great illumi- 
nation of the old Judson Compound, outdoing, in the 
brilliancy of its colored paper illuminations, anything of 
the kind I have ever seen. 

The Committee on Arrangements had so well planned 
the itinerary for the visiting delegates and their escorts, 
and the railroad travel conveniences placed at our dis- 
posal were so complete, that we had no difficulty in 
going from place to place, whether by day or night, 
with the minimum of discomfort. From Moulmein we 
proceeded to Pegu, spent an afternoon there and were 
favored with a reception by the several missions in the 
place, and thence we moved on to Toungoo, where 
another series of meetings was held, under the direc- 
tion of the Heptonstalls and their associates, very 
striking in character. The exhibits of the schools were 
an outstanding feature. An excursion of our American 
party by automobiles furnished by English residents, up 
to the mountain resort, Thandaung, was a delightful 
diversion. We ascended over three thousand feet up 
a Government-made road of the smoothest sort and 
through majestic forests. We were dined under the 
auspices of a Methodist orphanage establishment at 
Thandaung, and on our return in the evening we had 
a great "durbar," in which all the various types of 
native Christians and native workers were introduced to 
us on an illuminated compound in the open air. It was 
an evening of the highest excitement and delight. We 

23 351 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

had an afternoon on the Paku Karen Compound, where 
Dr. Cross lived and wrought for about a half-century, 
and there we had a rare meeting with the native 
Karen pastors that will never be forgotten for its 
pathos and moral earnestness. It was certain that our 
American visitors got an impression of the depth and 
purpose on the part of the Karen peoples of that region 
they never could have gotten otherwise. 

From Toungoo we moved on to Mandalay. Here,, 
also, great meetings were held not one whit behind 
those at the preceding points. We all went out to a 
Sunday morning service at Aungbinleh, full of impres- 
siveness. We then returned to an afternoon service 
in the Judson Memorial Chapel, at which I preached, 
Ah Sou interpreting, on "The Transfiguring Errand 
of the Church." We gave a day to a sail down the 
river a few miles to Sagaing, had breakfast there with 
some sympathetic English officials brought together by 
Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Grigg, then crossed the river to 
the site of old Ava. Here we had a notable meeting 
in a tabernacle erected for the purpose on the site of 
Judson's old prison-pen. Dr. Sanders gave us an 
address on "The Cross Principle," signalized by what 
Judson there endured and its implications for us, that 
will never be forgotten.* Mrs. Goodchild gave another 
on "The Heroism of Ann H. Judson" on that spot. 
From Ava we took bullock carts over the very road 
on which occurred what is known as Judson's "blood- 
tracked march" from Ava to Aungbinleh, when he ex- 
changed the wretched prison of Ava for a worse one, 
followed by that same angel of mercy that had min- 
istered to him at Ava. Midway, at the old capital, 
Amarapoora, we were served to an elaborate tea by 
the native authorities of the town. Suffice to say, that 
this day was entered in our calendars high up among 
graphic reminiscent occasions relating to Judson's time 
and Judson's pain-swept life, the like of which we do 
not expect to see equaled. 

* Dr. Sanders proposed on the spot to be personally responsible for 
some sort of memorial to mark the place, which has since been carried out. 

352 



THE JUDSON CENTENARY 

We spent a memorable two days, including Christ- 
mas, at Maymyo, the mountain retreat several hours 
distant from Mandalay, together with several of the 
American visitors, including the Edmandses and Mrs. 
Griffith, of Chicago. We were guests in the fine rest- 
house built by Mrs. Milton Shirk, of Chicago, and then 
under the efficient care of Miss Julia Parrott. Through 
the earnest invitation of one of the missionaries, Miss 
Slater, we shared in the rather elaborate Christmas 
exercises prepared for her school. On Christmas Day 
I preached a sermon which I hoped was suitable to the 
English community. We also visited the great market, 
and saw representatives of the various races and their 
wares on exhibit and for sale. Numbers of the Shan 
people were much in evidence. 

From Mandalay, a portion of our party went still 
farther northward to Bhamo and shared in the meet- 
ings of the annual convention of the Kachin Chris- 
tians, who had gathered five hundred strong in a 
bamboo tabernacle built by their own hands. When 
my wife and I arrived, the meeting was in session. I 
was at once put up to preach to them, my dear friend, 
Dr. Ola Hanson, whose ordination sermon I had 
preached in Minneapolis twenty-five years before, inter- 
preting for me, on "What It Means to Be Saved." 
Who could forget the picturesque scene, the natives all 
seated on the clean rice straw spread upon the ground, 
the men by themselves on one side and the women on 
the other, the schoolgirls all tidily dressed in navy-blue 
costumes, but the native women wearing about their 
necks broad silver bands and around their loins a group 
of bamboo hoops, for ornament and likewise for use as 
they come and go through the tall, wet jungle-grass 
from their mountain villages to the market centers? 
And how they sang; and how blessed the fellowship, 
not only with the natives, but with the missionaries of 
the station, all of whom we had known in this country. 
There was a baptism of nine converts in the river in 
the afternoon. We visited the Lyon Memorial Chapel, 
and observed the ripening fruits springing out of 

353 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

Lyon's memory and out of the subsequent work of 
Dr. W. H. Roberts, who has lived to be a veteran on 
that field.* 

Mrs. Mabie and I alone of the company went, also 
with Rev. and Mrs. George Geis, by steamer and train 
still farther northward, to our uppermost station at 
Myitkyina, and we felt indeed rewarded for the long 
journey, seven hundred and fifty miles north from 
Rangoon. The Geises have there wrought with wonder- 
ful devotion and skill. Not only had they developed a 
growing Kachin church — nay, a group of churches in 
the jungles- — but they have built schools and trained 
the Kachin young people in domestic arts and industries 
of various sorts. They have taught them skillful gar- 
dening; they have developed carpenters and workers 
in stone and cement. The boys have built their own 
dormitories; they are constructing for the Government, 
which has a great cantonment of soldiers there, thou- 
sands of reinforced concrete fence-posts. They have 
their own timber-yard and saw out their own lumber; 
they grow fruits and vegetables of every description ; 
they run a dairy and a poultry farm, and they have 
learned it all through the thrifty example of the mis- 
sionary and his wife, who have not been beyond work- 
ing with the natives, going before them in every line 
of undertaking, and using their own hands. The visit 
to Myitkyina was a rare episode among the many 
experiences in the various eastern lands. 

From Myitkyina we made the journey back to 
Rangoon and over to Bassein. By this time the Amer- 
ican visitors of the party had gone on their way, and 
I made use of my last fortnight in Lower Burma to 
give a series of lectures, particularly in Bassein and 
Rangoon. Bassein was full of interest to Mrs. Mabie 
and myself for many reasons. The occasion proved 
a very ovation to Mrs. Mabie from the fact that her 
eldest sister, Mrs. J. S. Beecher, had spent ten years 
in that center as a missionary. The traditions of the 

* I had voted on the brilliant Lyon's appointment as a member of the 
Executive Committee in 1877 or 1878. 

354 



THE JUDSON CENTENARY 

Beecher family were treasured by many, and the hearty 
greetings my wife received on her sister's account 
were heartfelt and touching. We both spoke before 
the three representative centers of mission work in 
Bassein ; namely, in the Ko Tha Byu Memorial Hall of 
the Sgaw Karens, Dr. C. A. Nichols, superintendent; in 
the principal building of the Pwo Karen work, Dr. 
Cronkhite in charge, and in the Burman school, Mr. 
Soper in charge. We were entertained by our old 
friends, Dr. and Mrs. Nichols, occupying the rebuilt 
Beecher home. We here renewed acquaintance with 
Dr. Boganu, in whose arms Mr. Beecher had died soon 
after reaching Plymouth, England, in 1866, and who 
afterwards spent ten years as a student in America. 
My addresses in Bassein were eagerly received as from 
a friend whose visit twenty-four years before had been 
remembered by the elders. Enough to say, that Bassein, 
with its outlying regions, with its large development of 
self-support in one hundred and fifty churches, each 
with a pastor educated among themselves, and now 
numbering in the aggregate not less than fifteen thou- 
sand Christians, is among the miraculous achievements 
with a minimum of aid from America, among the 
foreign missions of the world. 

On the return journey to Rangoon we stopped over 
a day and a night in Henzada as the guests of Dr. and 
Mrs. John Cummings, and of our friend of years, Miss 
Julia Stickney. We found the entire station work, and 
particularly the several schools for both Burmans and 
Karens, in a flourishing condition. These I not only 
addressed in their separate capacities, but I also gave 
opportunity for, I should think, a score or more, who 
were in an inquiring state of mind, for personal inter- 
views with me. 

Returning to Rangoon, I gave a series of lectures; 
five at the theological seminaries, both Karen and Bur- 
man in Insein ; four before the students of Rangoon 
College, and three before the Tamil-Telugu, Anglo- 
Indian peoples, among whom the Armstrongs so effi- 
ciently labor; and I preached twice in the English 

355 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

church. It was a busy period, but rilled with pleasing 
memories and impressions of the eagerness of mind 
with which at least a considerable body of Orientals 
await a message from the West, if it be spoken, not so 
much from the theoretic, as from the experiential, point 
of view. The truth is, the Oriental has the elements 
of the mystic deeply inwrought into his nature, and the 
Christian teacher from the West, who has not been led 
into the mystical side of things in his own religious 
life, will find a wider chasm between himself and the 
Oriental mind than he would think. 

Thus, turning away from Burma on our sail across 
the bay to Calcutta, I went with a memory of some 
of the highest experiences of my whole life, and some 
of the most blessed, that can never be effaced, and 
with an impression of the prodigious achievement of 
Judson's life and work. Our object in returning to 
Calcutta was to have a brief contact with our English 
Baptist mission there, and thence to move down the 
east coast to Colombo, Ceylon. This journey we made 
as an addendum to our visit to Burma, and it was 
filled with interest. In Calcutta, at Serampore and at 
the old Duff College in Calcutta, we received many 
courtesies, and were given an inside view of the 
development of colleges, of work among high-caste 
Hindu children, and of groups of native preachers of 
education and training. We also had a fine evening at 
the opening of a new hostel, under our English Bap- 
tists, at which a reception was given to some English 
visitors ; namely, Secretary Wilson and Sir George 
Mac Alpine. This evening occasion brought together 
some scores of dignitaries from the educated Hindu 
classes : judges, lawyers, heads of colleges, eminent 
philologists (one the head of the great Sanscrit Col- 
lege), and of other institutions gathered around Univer- 
sity Square. It afforded a view of India and the 
higher ranges of its personnel. And as all assembled, 
with whom we had free social converse, spoke English, 
this afforded a rare opportunity for the closer inlook 
into the trained Eastern mind. 

356 






THE JUDSON CENTENARY 

In the Orissa mission (formerly Free Baptist) we 
visited barely three stations; namely, Midnapore, where 
we were the guests of Dr. and Mrs. Murphy and 
enjoyed fellowship with one of my former Rochester 
pupils, Rev. J. A. Howard, and wife; Kargpur, where 
we had a brief visit with Mr. and Mrs. Oxrider, and 
Balasore, one of the earliest centers in that mission, 
where Mr. and Mrs. Hamlen have long wrought. 

Our next objective was the Canadian mission. We 
touched it at three different points; namely, at Walthair 
(and Vizagapatam), at Cocanada and at Pethipuram. 
At Walthair we had a great reception. At the home 
of Mr. Higgins a dozen or so of the Canadian mission- 
aries had assembled for an evening with us. When 
we arrived we proceeded to this compound, for I should 
think a half-mile. On each side of the roadway were 
lined up hundreds of school pupils, giving us a surpris- 
ing welcome — almost a state entrance — into the com- 
pound. In the evening I was put up to give an 
address in the larger city on the coast adjacent, called 
for short "Vizag." It was a notable occasion. Prob- 
ably six hundred were present. They needed no 
interpreter. An English judge presided. I spoke on 
"The Interrelations of the East and the West," dwelling 
on what the West, particularly America, had done for 
India within a century. It was amazingly received. 

At Cocanada we became the guests of Rev. and Mrs. 
John Craig, veterans on their field. Their splendid, 
large compound, and their great high school, which I 
addressed on two occasions, were something to behold. 
If our Canadian brethren have not branched out as 
widely as we, they have well equipped their stations. 
At Vizag we found a great school, virtually an academy, 
a college, and a theological school of nine hundred 
pupils, under the leadership of an able and learned 
Tamil head-master and his equally competent wife. 
The school had been developed for many years by the 
London Missionary Society, but turned over to our 
Canadian brethren, who were standing by it well. In 
Cocanada similar things are being developed. 

357 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

At Pethipuram, whither we traveled with a very 
gifted, efficient medical man, Dr. Smith, we found three 
marked features : first, the complete mission hospital ; 
second, a large native school of high quality, doing its 
work in English (which I also addressed), and, third, 
the relation of the mission to the person and influence 
of the liberal-minded rajah, who had his palace there, 
and who himself had done much for the uplift of the 
native population. We spent an hour with an Eurasian 
lady of high accomplishments, who is the companion of 
the "maharani," or wife of the rajah, within the 
grounds of the palace. This gave us a glimpse of one 
of the quieter forms of by-product in Indian missions, 
delightful to see. 

Leaving the Canadian mission, we came to Bapatla, 
where Rev. and Mrs. Geo. N. Thomssen have long and 
effectively labored. Mr. Thomssen has baptized five 
thousand Telugu converts within a very recent period. 
He has a great normal school. He is immensely inter- 
ested in the industries of the people involving the 
fertilization of their land. He has much favor with 
the Government and with the leading men of the city, 
including judges, merchants, teachers, and what not. 
He got together the fathers of the town in a meeting 
to hear an address on "America's Christian Interest in 
India," and a group of students for much closer con- 
tact. Mrs. Thomssen, also, with a true motherly 
devotion, has a hold on the women and children of 
every class and caste, most touching to witness. The 
return visit to Ongole for a couple of days rendered 
occasion for further preaching and interviews with 
native Brahmans, including the mayor of the town and 
his gifted son. I also saw gathered on the veranda of 
Professor Martin's home a group of pastors and leading 
men of the mission, discussing various questions relating 
to the methods of the mission. It was all an index of 
the great advance in thought made in the Telugu mis- 
sion since my visit of twenty-four years before. As 
we left Ongole, the very train we were to board brought 
a large contingent of the American visitors, including 

358 



THE JUDSON CENTENARY 

Dr. Sanders, the Goodchilds, and others, to have their 
first glimpse of the Ongole field. 

We made no stop at Nellore, but had wired the 
Downies to meet us at the train, which tarried for a 
few minutes. They brought us luncheon, exchanged 
a few earnest thoughts, and we proceeded to Madras. 

Our second visit to Madras was mainly for a brief 
visit with the Fergusons and Mr. and Mrs. Volney 
Witter. We also enjoyed a short reunion with portions 
of the Judson Centenary deputation. We then pro- 
ceeded to Vellore, the interesting center of the Arcot 
mission and of the historic work of the famous Scudder 
family, some fourteen members of which have served 
on that field. W r e were received in the home of Dr. 
Ida Scudder and her venerable mother, both of whom, 
together with Dr. John Scudder, the head of the house, 
had been our guests at Northfield. By Miss Scudder 
we were shown some interesting monuments of Hindu- 
ism, now disused, but the more interesting things to us 
were the admirable hospital, in charge of Dr. Ida, 
and contact with the large body of students in the 
mission school and the native church, to both bodies 
of which I gave addresses. We also shared with the 
missionary community in an evening banquet, served 
in the open on a former bandstand, commemorative of 
Abraham Lincoln's birthday. 

From Vellore we proceeded to Tan j ore — a region 
made memorable by the pioneer labors of Christian 
Friederich Schwartz, who entered India fifty years 
before Carey. The real mission work in Tan j ore is 
now mainly carried on by the Church of England mis- 
sions. The original chapel of Schwartz, however, is 
still shown, bearing the marks of time. Within it, and 
behind the desk, is a magnificent bas-relief, in white 
marble, representing Schwartz upon his death-bed, by 
the famous artist Flaxman. The dying saint is propped 
up on his couch and surrounded by grieving servants 
and reverent Hindus, such as delighted to do him 
homage. 

The famous temple of lofty height, marvelously 

359 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

chiseled with all sorts of legendary scenes, is the prin- 
cipal architectural monument, I should think about two 
hundred feet in height. The chief structure is sur- 
mounted by a wondrous carved cap-stone in granite, the 
weight of which is eighty tons. Tradition says it was 
moved thither on an inclined plane of earth, starting 
four miles outward from the temple, and which it 
took twelve years to construct, the earthworks being 
afterwards removed. 

After a morning in Tanjore we proceeded, via 
Trichinopoly, to Madura. Our train stopped for dinner 
at Trichinopoly, but we could not take the time to 
visit the famous temple, which forms so conspicuous 
an object on the horizon, and is three or four miles dis- 
tant from the town. The lower portions of the temple 
are chiseled out of an enormous rock. 

Arrived at Madura, we were met at the station by 
Dr. John P. Jones * and taken out to his home in one 
of the suburbs, where is located the theological seminary 
and also one or more important preparatory schools. 
We much enjoyed the gracious hospitality of Dr. and 
Mrs. Jones. We heard him preach the baccalaureate 
sermon before a large graduating class at the seminary 
in the morning. In the afternoon I addressed the 
entire seminary on "The Triumphs of Faith in Chris- 
tian History." In the evening we went into the city 
and became the guests of Dr. and Mrs. John C. Chan- 
dler. We were interested to see the notable group of 
buildings, in quadrangular form, that fill the mission 
compound, and afterwards to visit the large hospital, 
the higher girls' school and a college, the buildings of 
the two latter institutions occupying spacious sites in 
the environs of the city. Two other notable things 
enlisted our interest. The first was a remarkable 
palatial structure in which some monarchs of the past 
once held court. It was built in a very pretentious 
and showy style, although of a perishable material. 
It was all very suggestive of former dissolute condi- 
tions on the part of dynasties whose power long since 

* Recently deceased. 

360 



THE JUDSON CENTENARY 

passed. The other structure was the famous Hindu 
temple of the place, which is one of the marvels in stone 
of southern India. It abounds with carvings upon its 
several lofty flowers, pyramidal in shape, but the 
character of these, or many of them, are so unseemly 
and pagan that they are not fit to be described. It was 
pitiable to observe the debased forms and features of 
some of the devotees who were moving about among 
the shrines and in manifold prostration in the dust and 
oil, with which the shrines are frequently consecrated 
and the superstitions thus kept alive. We were not 
the only tourists who have described such character- 
istic shrines of India as among the most hideous 
objects, with all their vile accompaniments, which the 
world presents. I preached for Dr. Chandler on the 
Sabbath evening. 

On the day following we were on our way, a long 
railway journey to Tuticorin, where, without much 
delay from quarantine regulations on account of bubonic 
plague, just then breaking out afresh, we crossed the 
straits by a night steamer to Colombo, Ceylon. Ceylon 
is, of course, in point of scenery, in monuments, etc., 
considered a gem in the South Indian Ocean. Colombo 
itself is a charming city, and the hotels and homes of 
foreigners, surrounded by the most beautiful plants, 
shrubbery and tropical trees, make it resemble a bit of 
paradise. We found a home for a few days in the 
comfortable Missionary Rest House, kept by an English 
lady. There, also, we were delighted to meet several 
friends of other days, in transitu from the Orient to 
the Occident, among them the Fitches, of China, and 
the Blackstones (father and son, with the latter's 
family), of China and Chicago, and we much enjoyed 
the spirit of devotion that filled this comfortable hos- 
pice with perhaps a score of Christian occupants. We 
made but one detour into the country, and that was a 
long and constantly ascending mountain railway trip 
to Kandy. This we found a most picturesque place, 
almost among the clouds, with a marvelous botanical 
garden containing innumerable species and varieties of 

361 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 



palms, bamboos, and all sorts of flowering plants, the 
loveliest of orchids, etc. But Ceylon is the stronghold 
of Buddhism even yet, and its blight is upon everything. 



362 



XXXVI 
A THIRD VISIT TO CHINA 

FROM Colombo we proceeded to China. We little 
thought of what then impended for the sea-going 
interests of the world. At Penang and Singapore, 
en route, I was again on familiar ground. At Penang 
our ship* stopped long enough to admit of our taking 
jinrikshas out to some very pretty botanical gardens, 
which, of course, being so near the equator, are very 
luxuriant. The whole region for miles around is 
planted with cocoa palms by the million, which bring 
in a large revenue. 

At Singapore we also stopped for the greater part 
of a day. This also admitted of a visit into the city, 
and also to the very thriving American Methodist mis- 
sion. Their press establishment is quite notable, and 
the Anglo-Chinese school, the chief feature of the 
mission, which, when I first saw it in 1891, had four 
hundred students, now has about twelve hundred. 
We also called on two of the families of the mission, 
in their beautiful compound on the edge of the town, 
and had a couple of hours of pleasant converse. This 
is a city where dwell many thousands of thrifty and 
liberalized Chinese, who, under the privileges of the 
British Government, have grown wealthy. Some of 
them have done much to help the mission, which in turn 
does so much for their sons and daughters. 

In the early evening our ship loosed her moorings, 
and we were on our way to Hongkong. We tarried 
here but a day, visiting some of the interesting points 
of the city, including "The Happy Valley" — their very 
pretty cemetery — and also ascending, by the cable rail- 

* The "Prinz Eitel Friedrich," now interned. 
363 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

way, the so-called "Peak," on the terraces of which 
are located so many fine villas, owned both by foreign- 
ers and wealthy Chinese. From the summit we gained 
a wonderful view of the surrounding waters and many 
promontories, within which lies one of the finest harbors 
in the world. Looking down from this lofty viewpoint, 
we counted, anchored to their respective buoys, about 
sixty-five sea-going steamships, not to mention a great 
number of smaller craft. I think Hongkong now ranks 
as the third or fourth largest seaport in the world, at 
least for accommodation of ships of call ; its commerce, 
also, is prodigious. The shops of Hongkong are very 
fascinating, filled as they are with so many products 
of the Far East, and also with imported European 
goods. While dining at a restaurant, I fell in with 
Dr. Arnold Foster, of the Hankow London Mission, 
whom I had met before, both at Hankow and Shanghai. 
We had some pleasant converse respecting other days 
and China missionaries, some now departed, like Griffith 
John and Joseph Adams. Dr. Foster also expressed 
surprise and deep regret at the abandonment by our 
American Baptists of the Central China Mission, one 
to which the London Mission has always been so 
friendly. It was to me a very distressing subject, and 
there was little I could say in extenuation of this back- 
ward step on the part of our Board at this most 
strategic center in China, a point at which we had 
gained, through the labors of the highly efficient mis- 
sionaries, the Adamses, six hundred communicants in 
about twenty years, in addition to fruit gathered at 
several outstations. 

Our arrival in Shanghai was earlier than was ex- 
pected, and on a rainy morning. However, I easily 
gave directions to our cabman, and we were shortly 
welcomed at the door of our missionary friends, Mr. 
and Mrs. Roy Stafford, and made comfortable for 
several days. I gave myself to a few very general 
matters, stopping only a fortnight in Shanghai, al- 
though, in answer to very urgent invitations, we made 
a brief visit to Nanking, that historic and interesting 

364 



A THIRD VISIT TO CHINA 

center, which I had twice before visited. Besides, I 
felt I must give my wife a view of that place as a 
specimen of interior China. 

However, in the two weeks we spent in China I was 
kept exceedingly busy. Here I met again many friends 
of other days : Dr. Timothy Richard ; Dr. Bonfield, of 
the London Bible Society; the Fitches, of the Presby- 
terian press ; the veteran Farnums ; Dr. Gilbert Reid ; 
the Evanses, of the Missionary Rest House; the 
Beamans; the Proctors, etc. At the new Baptist college 
out "at the point," an institution in whose origin I had 
so deep an interest, we spent nearly a week, the guests 
of my Canadian cousins, Prof. Fred Mabee and wife. 
Here, also, I gave daily lectures on vital themes. Pres. 
F. J. White was extremely cordial, and the fellowship 
enjoyed with all five members of the faculty and their 
wives was most delightful. One of the students, who 
had been recently married, and a grandson of old 
Deacon Wang, of the Southern Baptist mission, whom 
I met in 1890, invited us to his rather handsome home 
for a Chinese feast, which we much enjoyed. His aged 
grandmother, Mrs. Wang, welcomed us to the home. 
Mrs. Mabie was particularly interested to be shown the 
elegantly furnished bridal chamber of the recently 
married couple. 

An outstanding feature of this visit to Shanghai 
was the opportunity it gave to come into touch with a 
few leading English-speaking Chinese of note, and with 
whom one could so readily communicate. One of these 
was Hon. Wu Ting Fang, twice minister to our coun- 
try, and a potent factor in the new China. I first met 
him, with other notable gentlemen, Chinese and foreign, 
at a complimentary dinner given to Mr. L. W. Messer, 
of Chicago, the general secretary of the Y. M. C. A. 
of that city. Shortly after, with Mr. Proctor, I visited 
Mr. Wu at his elegant home, and we had a lot of talk 
about things in general. We found him very genial 
and friendly, with some whimsies, but rather non-com- 
mittal in the realm of religion. He, however, owes 
much to missions and missionary influence in his early 

365 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

life. He, later, came to hear me lecture on Eucken's 
"Idealism," of which I shall later speak more fully. 

Two other Chinese gentlemen of real culture and 
interesting parts came across my path. The first was 
Hon. Y. C. Tong. He was for a period at the head of 
the Imperial Telegraph System for all China, and at the 
time of the Morrison Centenary Conference, in 1907, he 
was put forward by Viceroy Tuan Fong, of Nanking 
(since cruelly beheaded as a Manchu by the revolution- 
ists ) , to welcome the twelve hundred delegates to the con- 
ference in a public address in the large town hall. Other 
noted addresses were given, especially one by Dr. 
Arthur H. Smith, on "A Century of Missions in China." 
We secretaries had seats on the platform, and were 
introduced for the utterance of a sentiment or two 
each. In my remarks I referred to Secretary Hay and 
his outstanding position respecting the indemnity fund. 
This so caught the attention of Mr. Tong that, at the 
close of the meeting, he asked to be introduced to me. 
He presented his card and asked me to call the next 
day.* I went, in company with Dr. Richard, and a 
lasting friendship grew out of it. Mr. Tong was the 
first to greet me at the Y. M. C. A. function referred 
to. He also then introduced me to his distinguished 
relative, Hon. Tang Shao Yi, late Premier of the Re- 
public of China, but then retired as not in favor with 
Pres. Yuan Shi Kai. These two interesting men 
called on us twice at our lodgings, and had us to 
afternoon tea in the handsome home of Mr. Tang, and 
both came to the jetty to see us off when we sailed. 
Mr. Tang presented Mrs. Mabie with a huge bouquet 
of lovely violets, and communicated to me a special 
message for Professor Eucken. He also presided one 
afternoon when I addressed the International Institute, 
at which many distinguished Chinese were present. 
Among them was the sixty-seventh official head, or 
"pope," of Taoism, succeeding to Lao-tsze. 

I confess my interest in meeting these two men was 
uncommon, for it indicated both a fine memory of an 

* Particulars of this contact between us are given in Chapter XXIII. 
366 



A THIRD VISIT TO CHINA 

earlier occasion (in 1907) and an appreciation of my 
own great friendliness for China and the Chinese. It 
seems that Mr. Tong had told his relative Tang of my 
words at the Morrison Centenary, and of the further 
fact that in some of my books I had put on record 
my deep sympathy with the proposal of Secretary Hay 
respecting the return of half the legal indemnity im- 
posed on China for the United States, and that on a 
principle of grace and sacrificial good will to China, 
when others exacted the last farthing from that land. 
Moreover, I found, as Tang himself told me, that when 
the matter came up in Pekin it was his official proposal 
that every dollar of the returned indemnity should be 
set aside for the education of certain selected Chinese 
youths in America — the land which had shown them 
such consideration. This combination of circumstances, 
therefore, underlay the interest with which these two 
gentlemen awaited my appearance in Shanghai, which 
they had seen announced; and it warmed their hearts 
towards me. Tong had said, years before, after hear- 
ing my few words in the town hall: "You spoke like a 
man who loves my country;" a matter in which I 
assured him he was not mistaken. And here was the 
living and unexpected proof of a deep and lasting 
gratitude, not for themselves alone, but for their coun- 
try. The truth is that both these gentlemen were among 
the contingent of students sent by their Government to 
this country many years ago and put to school in 
Hartford, Connecticut, for instruction in Western edu- 
cation, but finally withdrawn, to the great loss of 
China, for fear their Confucianism would be under- 
mined. But these men had remembered and treasured 
much that they had learned. They were very partic- 
ular, also, to send by me their love to one of the veteran 
pastors in Hartford — Dr. Joseph Twichell — still living, 
who had befriended them. 

After all, how many good things hang together in 
this world, and how enduring and far-reaching are 
some impressions. 

At the time I was in Shanghai it was announced 

24 367 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

that Prof. Rudolf Eucken, of Germany, had been 
invited by the Imperial University of Japan to visit 
the East for a course of lectures ; and he was to em- 
brace at least Pekin and Shanghai on the way, traveling 
via Siberia. When it was heard in Shanghai that I had 
visited Eucken in Germany, and had studied him, before 
and since, pretty thoroughly, I was asked to give a 
parlor talk on Eucken and his philosophy to a few 
assembled missionaries. But when it was found that 
so many wished to come, it was decided to have the 
meeting at the Palace Hotel and before the University 
Club. The meeting proved to be larger than I expected, 
and I discoursed for an hour or so on Eucken's "Ideal- 
ism" as a basis for theism. This I conceived to be the 
supreme need of the Far East. My audience was a 
very thoughtful one, and embraced in it the aforesaid 
Chinese gentlemen, and many others of their race well 
up in English, as well as many missionaries and others 
of the foreign settlement. I will only add that Tang 
Shao Yi and Y. C. Tong were so much interested that 
they later urged that, in writing Professor Eucken, I 
should ask him to give at least one or two of his lec- 
tures in Shanghai in English rather than German, so 
they might carefully translate them into Chinese for 
the benefit of the thinking portion of their countrymen. 
But, alas ! the war came on soon after, and Professor 
Eucken was debarred from the Eastern tour, although 
he wrote me most appreciatively his thanks for the 
request that I had forwarded from my Chinese friends, 
and promised to conform to it when he came, which, 
alas! the oncoming of the war prevented. 

I was really kept speaking or preaching daily during 
all the period of our stop in the city, besides meeting 
numbers of missionaries in their homes, schools and in 
prayer and fellowship meetings. 

A second visit to the American Episcopal St. John's 
College repaid me many times. It was also a great joy 
to see our Baptist college, in which American Baptists, 
North and South, co-operate, coming on so successfully 
in similar lines. We now have about one hundred and 

368 



A THIRD VISIT TO CHINA 

fifty students in that fine institution, a school well 
housed in a fine administration building, and with a 
half-dozen or so of good brick or stone houses for the 
professors, besides students' quarters. I preached once 
in the Union Church and once in the Christian Church 
building, where before (in 1907) I had preached to 
two or three hundred missionaries. Dr. Bryan, of our 
Southern Baptist Society, had also on a Sunday after- 
noon a large mass-meeting of the several interests under 
his charge, which I also addressed with great delight. 
This work under our Southern brethren just now is the 
main, if not only, part in evangelistic work carried on 
by Baptists in this mighty city, or near it. Northern 
policy is to give attention mainly to the more intellectual 
classes, to "educate leaders." But where is the material 
out of which to construct these leaders to come from, 
if we fail to win individual converts, one by one, to 
the faith of the gospel? Let us beware of trying to 
build from the top. In the end, through such a policy 
we may prove not to have built at all. 

Our trip to Nanking was taken by train and in a 
very comfortable sleeper. We were escorted thither by 
Dr. Philip S. Evans and taken to his hospitable home. 
We greatly enjoyed our visit with his lovely family, 
and also with Dr. and Mrs. Worth Brown. We also 
made the rounds, calling upon the representatives of 
the five or six other American missions, most of whom 
I had met eight years before, and some twenty- four years 
previously, on the same grounds, but then in a city 
very differently conditioned. The revolution had inter- 
vened, and the whole Manchu portion of the city had 
been destroyed, with scarcely one stone left upon an- 
other, over an area nearly a mile square. The old 
examination halls, once accommodating twenty thou- 
sand students in separate tiled stalls, were tumbling to 
pieces, and the soil about them being carried away to 
fill lower portions of the town. The great wall, about 
twenty miles in circumference, still stands, but they 
were talking of removing even that. The great feature 
concerning missions, which we were shown, was the 

369 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

union undertaking in collegiate, language, medical and 
theological work. The buildings were substantial and 
the spirit of harmony excellent. I addressed the five 
hundred students of the college, through the splendid 
interpretation of Vice-President Williams, on "Condi- 
tions Essential to the New Citizenship of China." The 
attention was close, and I believe the Divine Spirit sent 
home the truth to many of them, and particularly, as 
they told me, to some of the Chinese teachers. 

I have little to say respecting the political situation 
in China. My chief confidence for her is in the values 
imparted to her by Western Christianity since Morrison. 
Just now, the example shown her by nominal Christendom 
is shocking and deplorable in the extreme. The next 
peril will be the secularization of Christianity through 
mere philanthropies, controlled by some form or forms 
of centralized power which tend to lessen the sense of 
responsibility of the various Christian communions which 
founded the missions, and which have hitherto had their 
interests so deeply at heart. 



370 



XXXVII 
JAPAN AND HAWAII-HOMEWARD BOUND 

AFTER this pleasant fortnight in China, we sailed 
for Japan on the North German Lloyd steamer 
"Yorck" (since destroyed and sunk in the North 
Sea). We passed through the beautiful Inland Sea, 
and broke our journey at Kobe. Here we were met 
by a party of missionaries, including Rev. J. H. Scott, 
Rev. J. A. Foote and Rev. Mr. Steadman, and taken 
up to the Thomsen home for entertainment, although 
the Thomsens themselves were in America on fur- 
lough, Mr. Foote being in charge. Two incidents of our 
stay in this city were the union church services, at 
which I preached on Sunday, and a visit on an after- 
noon at the American Methodist College, in conference 
with members of the theological faculty respecting my 
late visit to Germany. From Kobe we went to Himeiji, 
to visit the Briggses and to attend the Commencement of 
the fine girls' school, of which Miss Wilcox is the prin- 
cipal. A visit to the old, medieval castle, the chief 
historic monument of the place, was also of considerable 
interest, especially to Mrs. Mabie, who saw it for the 
first time. Returning to Kobe, we passed on to old 
Nara, originally, in the very early days, a capital of 
Japan. It is picturesquely situated, and abounds in 
numerous Buddhist and Shinto temples. There is also 
an enormous sized bronze image of Buddha — their 
"Daibutz" — within a mammoth wooden shed, which is 
visited daily by multitudes of devotees. There is also 
a wondrous broad avenue passing through a very beau- 
tiful park of ancient cedars, some of them centuries old, 
amid which hundreds of tame deer wander or lie about 
in the shade at will, themselves regarded as something 

371 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

sacred and connected with the idolatries of the people. 
But Nara abounds with signs of dissolute living. 

Thence we journeyed a few miles farther on, through 
pretty tea-gardens, to Kyoto, another, but more recent, 
capital of old Japan. This is a large and typically 
Japanese city, the home of rare creations in art, and 
marked by numerous and imposing temples located on 
broad terraces of the adjoining hills. Several of these 
temples we visited. The ancient palace of the Mikados 
of the old time and a fine Shogun palace are still to 
be seen. 

We made a visit to the Doshisha College, not then 
in session, and called on President Harada, Miss Den- 
man (of the woman's department), and some other of 
the professors, conducted by Dr. Otis Carey, who early 
called on us at our hotel. This college now has about 
eighteen hundred students : it had but six hundred when 
I first saw it in 1891. I judge it now to be doing a 
good work — a work up to the rank of which I could 
wish our Baptist endeavors had long ago aspired in 
Japan, and in pronounced evangelical lines. 

I was particularly pleased to be enabled to climb 
the high hillside adjoining the city to visit the grave 
of Neesima, the first Japanese Christian apostle. The 
monument is a very simple and plain one, but the 
character and work of Neesima himself are of the first 
rank among all represented by native workers. He was 
a great and simple-hearted, unsophisticated believer, 
who, from the first outreaching of his spirit after the 
true God, which brought him to America to learn more 
about Him, until his demise, amid the grief of thou- 
sands of his fellow-countrymen, who, in 1889, gathered 
at his funeral, remained steadfast and true to Biblical 
ideals as he understood them. It was a satisfaction to 
see the very sod beneath which lay the remains of one 
so true. May a great army of soldiers of the cross 
as loyal as he, among his Japanese compatriots, rise up 
to follow in his steps and build solidly upon the foun- 
dations he laid. He was a missionary asset, belonging, 
not simply to the Congregationalists, but to the whole 

372 



HOMEWARD BOUND 



church of God, and a norm of character for all Asiatic 
Christians. 

From Kyoto we traveled by rail a long day's jour- 
ney to Yokohama. The country is very beautiful, 
marked by high mountains and rushing streams, while 
the fertile valleys are all cultivated to the highest degree 
of productiveness. We skirted the lower edges of 
Fujiyama, and betimes came out on the beaches of the 
sea. On arrival at Yokohama we were met by Rev. 
C. H. D. Fisher and driven to his comfortable home 
on the bluff. Here we made our headquarters for 
several days, while we visited about the place and its 
environs and received visits from our native Christians. 
I preached in the Union Chapel, a new and noble build- 
ing erected since I was last in Japan. I also spoke 
to our native church, and met several acquaintances 
whom I had come to know in earlier days, among them 
Mrs. Wm. Ashmore and her daughter. 

Our several missionary brethren, particularly Dr. 
Dearing and Mr. Axling, were very generous in 
securing appointments for me. These involved, not 
only the preaching of several sermons in both Yoko- 
hama and Tokyo, but in addresses as follows : one 
before the Federation of Churches in Tokyo, four in 
the Young Men's Christian Association Hall (including 
one on Eucken's system of philosophy as a basis for 
theism, and a second one to a more limited group of 
missionaries and native Christian teachers on certain 
theological defects in Eucken's position, respecting 
which they needed to be on their guard), an address at 
Waseda University — Count Okuma's great school — 
where I spoke again on Eucken's "Philosophy of Life," as 
opposed to mere mental speculation ; an address to our 
students in our new Baptist hostel near the Waseda 
institution, and one to the students of our own Duncan 
Baptist Academy. 

I also spoke twice at the Presbyterian theological 
school — the Meiji Gakuin — at our own Baptist seminary 
and at the Aoyami Institution, the American Methodist 
educational plant embracing a theological seminary. 

373 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

My theme in all the seminaries was "The Cross of 
Christ as Central in Christianity." 

On a Sunday evening I was favored, also, to be 
asked to speak to about five hundred Chinese students 
temporarily resident in Tokyo on "Truths Needed in 
China in Its Present Transitional Period." At this 
meeting Rev. Moses Ding presided. He had been a 
friend of mine for long, and a guest at my table in 
Northfield years ago. We had also met at the student 
conference at Rochester, and in 1907 in Foochow, China, 
in the Congregational theological school, where he was 
a teacher. He was on tiptoe to greet me, and intro- 
duced me con amore to the large audience as his per- 
sonal friend, while his nephew interpreted for me. It 
was a rare evening, one of the most cheering I spent in 
Japan. I was also invited to address the Association 
Concordia — a very thoughtful and earnest body of dis- 
tinguished Japanese gentlemen of light and leading, but 
representing various systems of religion — Confucian, 
Buddhist and- Christian. The association numbers about 
seventy members, among whom are Barons Shibusawa 
and Sakatani ; Professor Nitobe, of the Imperial Univer- 
sity, and men of similar caliber and reputed moral 
earnestness. A few American missionaries, like Prof. 
Sidney A. Gulick, Galen M. Fisher and Professor 
Coates, are also members. This body appears to be 
candidly seeking a purer and deeper basis for a 
national morality at least, if not religion, than they have 
yet found in the esteem of their more philosophic men. 
They asked me frankly to interpret to them the spirit 
of American Christianity in its relation to Japan, which 
I endeavored to do in the most careful and tactful 
manner I could command. I illustrated by the spirit 
which dominated Abraham Lincoln in his passion for 
emancipation of the black race, and especially in his 
later and more religious thoughts toward even his 
supposed enemies near the end of his life. I also cited 
Booker Washington, of our own land, revered beyond 
any man of his race, and by millions besides. I dwelt 
on his yearnings for the true and symmetrical, indus- 

374 



HOMEWARD BOUND 



trial and Christian uplift of his own people. I further 
reminded them of their own Neesima, known the world 
over as the pre-eminent Japanese, who had seized the 
true ideals of American Christianity for the whole 
human race and embodied them in one of their own 
Japanese colleges in a way truly phenomenal. I re- 
minded them that this Christianity also had a book — ■ 
the Christian Scriptures^ — translated into four hundred 
and fifty languages of the human race, and to-day in 
the markets of the world selling to a degree one hun- 
dred times above any other publication whatsoever. 
I also spoke of the institutions of Christianity, like the 
family, upheld in its purity in Christ's regard, despite 
all the abuses of it that mark even our own nominal 
Christian lands. I spoke also of hospitals and alms- 
houses of every description, which we would fain have 
all the world possess at their best. Yet, we could do 
little more than furnish the seed plants of these insti- 
tutions, and must leave to every people in their turn to 
utilize, assimilate and pass on to their respective coun- 
trymen. I insisted that Christianity is substantially a 
universal religion, originating on its human side in 
Asia, and with a phenomenal development and appli- 
cation in England and America. But it was in no 
sense a foreign, or even new, religion; it was pan- 
ethnic. It was my hope for Japan that she would, 
through all the ranks of her people, study it thoroughly 
for herself, unbiased by corruptions and abuses in 
Western lands, and apply it to the needs of her people, 
and test all her institutions by its standards. But Chris- 
tianity was unique in this, that through the work of God 
in Christ it furnished the only dynamic for the cure of 
sin. I was listened to with close attention, and repeat- 
edly thanked for my friendly message. 

A few evenings after, Dr. and Mrs. Nitobe — she a 
very accomplished Philadelphia lady connected with the 
Society of Friends — invited us, together with the Dear- 
ings and Mrs. Helen Barrett Montgomery and daugh- 
ter, of Rochester (who were then, also, on the way 
homeward from a tour of the East), to an evening 

375 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 



dinner — an occasion which we greatly enjoyed, both for 
the charm of the beautiful Japanese-European home 
and for the fellowship it afforded. Some remarks that 
Professor Nitobe had made to me when I called a day 
or two before were very assuring of the great progress 
in Japanese thought and sentiment, his own included, 
over the early Bushido — a mere religion of chivalry — 
even within a few years prior to the outbreak of the 
present dreadful European war. What the effect of 
this war must be to peoples like the Japanese, who 
previously were beginning to have some faith in our 
Western standards, is a matter of the deepest concern 
to all real Christian hearts. If it shall have the effect 
of disillusioning Japan respecting numberless lines of 
speculative and materialistic philosophy which have 
emanated from rationalistic Germany, to which she has 
been so easy a prey, it will be an enormous gain. The 
Nitobes were expecting to entertain Professor and Mrs. 
Eucken on their anticipated visit to Japan during his 
lectures in the Imperial University. The disappoint- 
ment, therefore, was great all round when the outbreak 
of the war and the clash between German and Japanese 
arms occurred. Professor Eucken himself wrote me 
rather bitterly of all this soon after the breach between 
the two nations, and concluded, "Alas ! now I shall 
never see Japan," and he further gave evidence that 
he was skeptical concerning „ the real spirit of Japan. 
I confess to a degree of personal regret that the Far 
East could not have had Eucken's message as respects 
theism — a message it so much needs at this juncture. 
In so far as I could get at the state of mind in Japan 
philosophically, Herbert Spencer and the extreme natu- 
ralistic evolution of his system were passing. It was, 
therefore, in a ripe condition to receive and profit by 
the message of Eucken, for no modern thinker has 
dealt heavier blows against naturalism, pantheism, sub- 
jectivism and agnosticism than Eucken. While we 
could wish he had not so readily adopted the guesses 
and crudities of a hasty so-called "Historical Criticism" 
(as if, because German, they must be true), we, never- 

376 



HOMEWARD BOUND 



theless, know no writer who has made it harder for the 
radical historic critics than Eucken. (See his remark- 
able essay, in "Christianity and the New Idealism," en- 
titled "Religion and History.") He grounds all history 
in an eternal order which works out "on the plane of 
time — implying a transcendence of time, and yet enter- 
ing into time." We were disappointed not to meet 
Count Okuma, who had just been called to the premier- 
ship of the nation. He invited us, with the Axlings, out 
to his home, and to speak to his students. But he was 
so pressed by newspaper men and by interviewing can- 
didates for his cabinet that he excused himself to us, 
turning us over to his adopted son, who showed us 
through the lovely garden, poured tea for us in the 
greenhouse and beautifully did the honors. 

The Axlings, in their lovely but simple Japanese 
home in Tokyo, were very hospitable. So also were the 
Dearings in Yokohama. 

I had a pleasant meeting with my old friend in 
Tokyo of twenty-five years ago and later in Boston, 
Mr. Barnabas Sakai. He is one of the choice fruits 
of St. Paul's School in Tokyo, under the American 
Episcopal mission. He was in the diplomatic service, in 
the Department of Foreign Affairs. 

I must also speak in this connection of my very 
pleasant visit, by his invitation, to Baron Sakatani, the 
then mayor of Tokyo, whose cordiality and appreciation 
of the ideals of our mission work were so gratifying. 

I had also a most gratifying visit with one of the 
somewhat eccentric but genuine Christian characters of 
Japan, Mr. Uchimura. This brother was educated in 
this country, in Amherst College, under the influence of 
President Seeley, one of the greatest and most Chris- 
tian of our American college presidents. In Uchimura's 
book, "The Story of a Japanese Christian," he describes 
his first meeting with the great president, when he early 
went to call on him. He was expecting to meet a man 
of leonine bearing and severe countenance, but, instead 
thereof, when the president came into the room, he 
appeared with moistened eyes and threw his gentle but 

377 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

strong arms around the lad, and from that moment 
became his constant and fatherly friend. This same 
president of Amherst had similarly received Neesima, 
and was so moved to receive this first Asiatic student 
that he was unable to sleep the first night Neesima was 
beneath his roof. To this day Uchimura cherishes a 
regard for the memory of President Seeley beyond that 
of any man he ever met. At the time that Uchimura in 
his student days awoke to appreciate the nature of the 
vicarious atoning work of God in Christ, and so came 
into the joy of an assured salvation, President Seeley 
gave up the entire hour of one of his classes, that it 
might hear from Uchimura's own lips the account of 
his conversion, and especially his appreciation of the 
Cross. Would that more college officials had a similar 
zeal. This Uchimura has been so troubled by the many 
and serious defections from the faith among his former 
ecclesiastical friends, that he has for some years stood 
by himself quite alone, without formal church connec- 
tion. He gives himself to writing books and pamphlets, 
which have sold by the thousands, and he edits a Chris- 
tian periodical, which has an immense circulation among 
earnest Japanese everywhere. He has latterly had under 
his tuition a son of the famous General Kuroki, who in 
turn has a large following of a hundred or more 
superior men in the Imperial University, who have prac- 
tically accepted Christianity, and yet are reckoned in no 
conventional statistics. I had an afternoon with Uchi- 
mura, at Mr. Axling's, of most intimate converse. We 
prayed together and laid our hearts bare at the throne 
of grace in behalf of Japan and the world. I am in- 
clined to rank high this brother — this New Testament 
Christian — as a foremost and typical man among 
Japanese who has found himself for Christian service 
among his own people. 

I must not omit to speak of the satisfaction we felt in 
being present at the Commencement exercises of the 
girls' school, so long in charge of Miss Converse, al- 
though we had to go to it through a blinding snowstorm, 
despite the exquisite cherry blossoms, that took a chill 

378 



HOMEWARD BOUND 



from which many did not recover. The new site is 
commanding and spacious, on an elevated ridge two or 
three miles out of Yokohama towards Tokyo. Mrs. 
Peabody was there and addressed the school, and the 
girls themselves showed signs of real mental discipline 
and training for the various tasks that await them. 

Miss Converse herself is much revered, and her 
assistants seem competent. Indeed, the work we saw 
under the Woman's Society in Japan at various points, 
including that of Miss Mead at Osaka, has long been 
excellent. 

Our touch at Honolulu was but for a day and night. 
Its principal incidents were visits to the large girls' 
school of the mission, to the native Hawaiian church 
and cemetery, and to the Pali, in company with Dr. 
John T. Gulick and Mr. Waldo Heinrichs, of the Y. 
M. C. A. The first-hand account of the former's rela- 
tions to the late Prof. George J. Romanes, and his re- 
turn to faith, was of particular interest to me, and the 
data he gave me invaluable. The night of our arrival 
at the port coinciding with the mid-week meeting of the 
Union Church, Dr. Scudder, the pastor, had arranged 
for Mrs. Montgomery and myself to speak on our world 
tours. Dr. Scudder took my wife and self home to 
spend the night and to the luxury of a quiet home, 
which, with its rare converse, afforded a pleasant break 
to the monotony of our long sea voyage. 

A six days' smooth sail onward towards the rising 
sun brought us to San Francisco, through its peerless 
Golden Gate, and to the fellowship of several beloved 
friends who met us at the dock. 

Thus, in these closing chapters, and in some earlier 
ones, I have chronicled the privileges that were mine 
of three times touring the Far East, not including 
several other visits to European lands. True, on each 
of these tours I came primarily into touch with our own 
Baptist missionary work, yet my interests took me also, 
designedly, into contact with the work of other societies 
and denominations than my own. 

In closing these autobiographical notes, I wish now 

379 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 

to emphasize the profound interest I feel in all really 
Christian work, by whomsoever performed. True, I am 
a Baptist, other things being equal, and in a true con- 
struction of that title. But I am no sectary. I am a 
Baptist plus — plus a great many things in the world's 
work not embraced formally in enterprises of the Bap- 
tist denomination.* 

My understanding of the term "Baptist" is that it 
designates a simple, apostolic, New Testament Christian, 
who has no religious zeal to maintain anything not en- 
joined in, or in harmony with, the New Testament; that 
is, he discards all traditions of men that have been 
superimposed upon New Testament teachings and given 
an authority practically equal to them. 

The New Testament places supreme emphasis upon 
the historic fact of the resurrection of Christ, which 
consummated the objective atonement, and upon the 
risen life in Christ Jesus, which every believer is ex- 
pected to live, as corollary to that fact. The outworking 
of Christian missions is but a result of this resurrection 
life. Missions are the resurrection errand of the church. 
The great commission to evangelize, especially the pagan 
world, was not given until after Christ's resurrection — 
during the period of "the forty days," when Christ was 
hovering on the borders of two worlds, training His fol- 
lowers to live in the heavenlies with Him. This resur- 
rection conception was made the more explicit in the 
commissioning of Paul to be the apostle to the Gentile 
world. Nor is any Christian fit to enter upon the 
evangelization of the heathen until he has realized the 
power of that resurrection in his habitual life, and is 
prepared to risk all upon the truth of that resurrection 
and the apostolic interpretation of its significance. Note 
the emphasis on this truth in all the references to preach- 
ing in the Acts. 

Hence my identification with Christians nicknamed 
"Baptists," but more truly described as "children of the 
resurrection," rather than as chiefly emphasizing a par- 



For a personal confession of faith, see Appendix "C 
380 



HOMEWARD BOUND 



ticular use of water, except in so far as that use sym- 
bolizes the central facts in Christianity. 

But the incident of my ecclesiastical connection does 
not imply on my part confinement to any narrowness of 
thought or activity of such denomination. Indeed, when 
I recall the limited scope of their efforts as a people, 
the broad and appalling - failures, especially educationally, 
and in mission lands professedly first entered and oc- 
cupied by them, I confess to chagrin and mortification. 
With such exemplars before us as Carey and Judson — 
the foremost pioneers in these realms — not to mention 
our lofty claims to represent apostolic Christianity — 
we ought long since to have led. the world in mission- 
ary achievements. 

In saying this, I am not uttering a sentiment of mere 
sectarian zeal, for that long ago was quite taken out of 
me by the manifest fruits in many missions, other than 
our own, which I have visited. Such fruits are apparent 
in northwest and southern India, in north China, in 
central and southern Africa, and in many islands of 
the South Seas I have never seen. 

What I now wish to put on record is the high es- 
timate I place on the work of any and all the evangelical 
denominations, wherever operating. In all these values 
I claim a right spiritually to share, as my very own, as 
I am Christ's and Christ is God's. God has crowned 
the work of all so far as they have "put first things 
first," and he has thrown a mantle of charity over the 
deficiencies of us all on account of the inexpressibly 
precious nature of the fundamental work done. In this 
we should all rejoice, while justifying no remainders of 
conscious error. 

When I call to mind the work of such societies as 
the Moravian, the London Society, the Church Mission- 
ary Society, the China Inland Mission, the Berlin and 
Basel societies, the Scottish societies, and the Presby- 
terian and Methodist societies North and South, the 
American Board, the Episcopal and Lutheran societies 
in our own land, and their great achievements, I thank 
God for all. I feel myself related as a stockholder to them 

381 



FROM ROMANCE TO REALITY 



all. I pray for them all, and to that degree I shall, by- 
God's grace, share in the fruits and rewards of them all. 
I simply decline to be left out of spiritual partnership 
with such apostles as Zinzendorf, Morrison, Duff, Liv- 
ingstone, Moffat, Chalmers, of New Guinea; Paton, 
Calvert, Thoburn and Butler, Bingham and Coan, o£ 
Hawaii; Pattison, Mackay and Tucker, of Uganda; Ver- 
beck, Bishop Williams and Neesima, of Japan; Boone, 
Griffith John and David Hill, of central China John 
R. Mott, Fletcher Brockman, Robert E. Speer, and all 
the rest. 

In my successive visits to mission lands, I either 
witnessed or shared a little in local situations like those 
represented by the pioneer Schwartz, in Tan j ore; the 
Scudders, at Vellore; Drs. Jones and Chandler, at 
Madura; Hume, at Ahmednagar; Ramabai, at Mukti; 
Thoburn, in Calcutta, Singapore and Burma, with the 
late Dr. J. G. Kerr, of Canton ; Drs. John and Foster, 
of Hankow, with the Methodist College work in Aoyama, 
Tokyo, and also in Kobe, with the Congregationalists in 
the Doshisha and in Honolulu ; with the Dutch Reformed 
work in Nagasaki, the United Presbyterian work in 
Cairo, the Berlin and Gossner societies, and Inner Mis- 
sion work in Germany; with Bishops Latrobe, Hennig" 
and Taylor Hamilton in Herrnhut; with the French 
Presbyterians in Paris, Nimes, Africa, and on the 
Riviera. All these interests belong to me and I to them. 

If at some points, as in Japan, India or China, in 
the extension of educational work, my own denomina- 
tion has come short, I thank God for those who have 
done better, as have the Episcopalians in St. John's and 
Boone Colleges in China; the Reformed Church in 
Japan and in Amoy, the Scotch societies in India, and in 
such work as Drs. Martin, Sheffield, Richard, McGil- 
vary, J. Young Allen and others in great China have 
performed. 

I think of no native Christian, of whatever race or 
color, but as my brother, a joint member with me in the 
body of Christ. 

It is the joy and crown of my life to have been per- 

382 



HOMEWARD BOUND 



mitted these visions, to have had such a share in these 
great matters of the kingdom of Christ upon earth ; this 
share signifies the greatest honor that could have been 
conferred on me. 

If, as in the view of some thinkers on the present 
chaotic condition of the world, induced by the unparal- 
leled war, the mission era is closing down, I rejoice to 
have known the day of my visitation. If that era should 
be long continued in larger forms, I wish for those who 
follow me yet larger participation than any of our past 
generations have known. I am thankful to have had, 
in the gracious providence of God, some part at least, 
throughout my whole life, and members of my beloved 
family as well, in helping on the world-wide movement 
of witnessing to all mankind respecting the unapproach- 
able Christian gospel. 

To God be all the praise forevermore! 



383 



APPENDIX A 

RADICALISM IN EDUCATION 

THERE is an inordinate zeal for modernism built on 
the presupposition of a naturalistic evolution. 
This force of modernism too easily assumes 
the latest to be always and necessarily the truest. The 
tendency of all this is to work havoc in education. This 
later drift in thought may quite as likely represent be- 
times a form of devolution, reversion to type, or even 
downright apostasy from truth. 

Any discriminating mind with a zeal for real educa- 
tion, can but inquire why so much "higher education" 
in our time should commonly presuppose the merely 
novel and often destructive lines of thought, based on 
the extravagancies of evolution. Some would seem to 
suppose that fundamental truth was never known prior 
to Darwin. Yet he himself confessed that he had so 
exclusively given himself to physical nature and material 
phenomena that his higher powers, metaphysical, phil- 
osophical and religious had become fairly atrophied. 

I would like to inquire why so generally our modern 
colleges, unlike those of an earlier period, have given 
so slight attention to "Evidences of Christianity" as a 
distinct subject of college study. Such treatises as 
those of the late Pres. Mark Hopkins, of Williams 
College ; of Bishop Mcllvaine, or of Pres. E. Y. Mullins 
on "Why Christianity is True," are in my judgment 
essential to the intelligence of any really educated man, 
whether he reaches the same conclusion as the authors 
named or not. 

Yet further, why are not such masterpieces and 
classics in literature as the following more generally 
commended to students? Butler's "Analogy;" Flint 

385 



APPENDIX A 



on "Theism;" Janet's "Final Causes;" Bushnell's "Na- 
ture and the Supernatural;" Balfour's works; Dale on 
"The Atonement;" Harris' "The Philosophical Basis of 
Theism;" J. R. Illingworth's "The Divine Transcend- 
ence" and his "Gospel Miracles ;" Westcott's "The Gos- 
pel of the Resurrection;" Tregelles' "Daniel;" Prof. B. 
P. Bowne's works; Ward's "Realm of Ends;" Prof. G. 
H. Palmer's "Freedom;" Mullins' "Freedom and Au- 
thority in Religion;" Christlieb's "Modern Doubt and 
Christian Belief;" Liddon's "Divinity of Our Lord;" 
Mohler's "Are the Critics Right?" Fairbairn's "Philos- 
osophy of the Christian Religion ;" Strong's "Philosophical 
and Theological Productions;" Robin's "Ethics of the 
Christian Life;" A. P. Peabody's "Science and Christi- 
anity;" "The Fact of Christ," by Simpson; "Prophecy a 
Preparation for Christ," by R. Payne Smith; Orr's 
"Christian Conception of the World," "Problem of the 
Old Testament" and "The Virgin Birth;" Mcintosh's 
"Doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ ;" Forsyth's "Per- 
son and Place of Jesus Christ," his "Positive Preaching 
and the Modern Mind" and his "Principle of Author- 
ity;" Professor Denny's two great works, "The Atone- 
ment and the Modern Mind" and his "Jesus and the 
Gospel ;" Thomson's "Brain and Personality ;" Garvie's 
"The Christian Certainty amid the Modern Perplexity;" 
and if one wishes to profit by German writers, Zahn's 
"Introduction to the New Testament;" Deissmann's 
"Paul" and his "New Light from the Ancient East;" 
Wendland on "Miracles ;" the works of Seeberg, Luthardt, 
Ihmels, Schlatter and other well-known "positives." 
These men are constructive, competent and ecumenical 
apologists. 

If it be said that these books are antiquated, I reply, 
"A thoughtless verdict!" Some of these books are very 
recent, and all are dateless in message and values, "both 
old and new." They are as essential to normal Chris- 
tian thought and health in our times as are the permanent 
elements of bread, water or common oxygen to our phy- 
sical subsistence. If greater heed were given to such mas- 
ters there would result a "higher education" worth while. 

386 



APPENDIX A 



But, alas! we find, instead, wide commendation of ephe- 
meral theorizings, hastily adopted guesses drawn from 
pseudo-science and from rationalistic philosophizings, 
often the production of men who have made little record 
for creative values in the Christian church. 

Of course, many other books than those mentioned, 
and doing sufficient justice to all real modern light and 
to the phenomena of growing science, might be named. 
Wholesome displacements in theology of some of the 
crudities and half-truths of the past are always in order 
as in any other science. Some of Sanday's and Har- 
nack's findings, e. g. } have a constructive value. A score 
of the writings above referred to, do full justice to a sane 
criticism. While stopping short of pantheistic errors, 
they are strongly theistic and properly emphasize redemp- 
tion, but the destructive extremism of Wellhausen and 
other naturalistic theorists undermines confidence in 
revelation and the reality of miracle, even the resurrection 
of our Lord.* All this at bottom is neither history nor 
exegesis nor just criticism, but a form of philosophic dog- 
matism which begs every fundamental question at stake. 

* It was the common understanding at the time I was in Germany that 
the lecture-room of Wellhausen, though once so popular, was well-nigh 
empty. 



387 



APPENDIX B 

AN INTERVIEW WITH PROF. HAECKEL 

ON an evening in August, 1913, the writer, accom- 
panied by Professor Rudolf Eucken, was privi- 
leged to meet, in Jena, two other distinguished 
German professors; namely, Ernest Haeckel and Wil- 
helm Ostwald, his successor as president of the Ger- 
man Monistic Society, of Leipzig. As we were ushered 
into Haeckel's library, he jocosely inquired, "Aren't you 
afraid to come into this den of lions? We have the 
reputation here of being dreadful infidels." 

I replied, "I have no particular sense of fear. I am 
looking for the lions of Jena, and so, under the protect- 
ing aegis of Professor Eucken, I am here." 

Then came another query, "What do you think of 
this scheme of things [meaning the universe], of which 
we are a part?" 

I answered, "Well, I am not here for controversy, 
but your question is a straight one, and it is entitled 
to a straight answer. I reckon there is a Thinker be- 
hind it all." 

He responded, "Perhaps." 

I answered, "Why say 'perhaps'? That is certain." 

He added, "What makes you so confident?" 

"Your own basis as a scientist." 

He asked, "How so?" 

I replied, "Because all science, e. g., chemistry, in 
order even to start, must find a rational 'pou sto' ; that 
is, it must postulate certain primary truths, intuitions, 
or axioms, relations deeper than formal proof, in order 
to find any standing whatever in reason or rationality." 

And I added, "Doubtless you believe in the science 
of astronomy." 

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APPENDIX B 



"Certainly." 

"But is not astronomy mainly based on mathematics? 
And is not mathematics a strictly psychological phe- 
nomenon ?" 

"Undoubtedly." 

"Are all mathematical axioms the deliverances oi 
rationality ?" 

"Of course." 

"And who is the real astronomer, say a Kepler or 
Copernicus, but one who has rationally thought the 
structure and order of the stellar universe over again 
on its plan?" 

"A good definition of an astronomer." 

"Then, is not he who brought into being the astral 
worlds, to be rethought by us, at least a mathematician, 
and, if so, a thinker?" 

To this the arch-agnostic author of The Riddle of 
the Universe made no reply; he changed the subject. 

When asked if a framed picture of two mammoth 
apes hanging on the wall of the room were his ances- 
tors — the real "missing links" — he smilingly answered 
"Yes." 

I then asked, "Whence came they?" 

"Oh," he replied, "from the egg." 

"Indeed! But who laid the egg? ,y 

He again changed the subject, and began to inquire 
about immortality and wondered if I believed in it. 

By this time it was Eucken's turn to come in for 
some criticism respecting his idealism. This waked 
the philosopher up, and he warmed eloquently to his 
replies. In winding up his colloquy, Eucken did not 
hesitate to charge that these naturalists were extreme 
dogmatists, and that "without sufficient grounds in 
science :" they contemned philosophy. 

Thus in most definite form the issue implied re- 
ceived concrete illustration. Our universe is either a 
product of thought and purpose, or it is a self-wrought 
evolution of matter, and that uncreated, the greatest 
miracle imaginable. 



APPENDIX C 

A PERSONAL CONFESSION OF FAITH RESPECTING SOME 

FUNDAMENTALS OF REVEALED AND 

ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

I. Of the Scriptures. — The full and sufficient inspira- 
tion for purposes of religious belief and conduct 
of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, 
interpreted in harmony with themselves, in consonance 
with the spiritual consciousness of Christ and that of the 
Spirit-endued, apostolic interpreters. The Scriptures bear 
a unitary message for all mankind. 

This inspiration issues in a substantially authentic and 
authoritative revelation from God to man, and is more 
than a product of naturalistic and impersonal evolution. 
This revelation compasses such vast cosmic matters as 
creation, providence and redemption. It embraces the 
realm of a higher, invisible and eternal Order, above our 
temporal and visible Order, and discloses realities like the 
incarnation, atonement, resurrection and ascension of 
Christ, the significance of Pentecost, the constitution of 
the church, the forms of Christ's "parousias" and other 
eschatological matters difficult of exact interpretation. 

II. Of the Person of Christ. — The Second Person of 
the Trinity became incarnate through a supernatural, 
divinely begotten, virgin birth, into the human race, and 
passed through a unique career as the new Head of that 
race, back to the Father who sent him. He is called, in 
Scripture, variously, "The Son of Man," "the Word" 
(Logos), "the Lord from heaven," "the last Adam," "God 
manifest in the flesh," and is "declared to be the Son of 
God with power," by his resurrection. 

It is impossible to read the forty or more distinct 

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APPENDIX C 



references by Christ to himself, as the "Son of man," and 
observe that, in the majority of cases, his death and resur- 
rection is either asserted or implied, and allow that he 
is only human. A mysterious union of Deity with human- 
ity is unquestionably presupposed and involved. Christ 
is far more than the subject of the religion he taught. He 
is also its Object and evermore to be worshiped as the 
crowned, supreme revelation of God and Head over all 
to the church of all time. 

III. Of the Atonement. — His atonement was, at bot- 
tom, a form of self -reconciliation (far deeper than its 
historical denouement and manifestation on Calvary: 
Eph. 3:9-11; Col. 1 : 25-27 ; 2 Tim. 1:9, 10; Tit. 1:2,3; 
1 Pet. 1:20; Rev. 13:8). It was eternal in the being 
of God himself. The conflict (or antinomy) between the 
divine holiness and love occasioned by man's sin was 
harmonized through God's own self-imposed, vicarious 
suffering, immanent in "the Lamb slain from the founda- 
tion of the world." 

The suffering self-reconciliation on the part of the 
gracious God, from the foundation of the world, was 
cosmic and timeless ; it would seem to have been morally 
necessary to justify the divine risk incurred in man's cre- 
ation as free. This was the fundamental reality prerequi- 
site to our subjective at-one-ment with Him. The atone- 
ment, therefore, as cosmic, was originally objective for 
us in God, and becomes inwardly vital and experiential 
in us. This self-reconciliation effected in God was needed 
not only in the interest of his own self -consistency, but 
also as historical to enable man to grasp the reality. 
Hence all was concretely and visually objectified and 
manifested in Christ's voluntary laying down of his life, 
and resuming it in resurrection power on the third day. 

IV. Of the Resurrection. — The resurrection of Christ, 
although issuing in an empty grave, was more than a mere 
physical resuscitation of his body, like that of Lazarus. 
He was "the First-begotten from the dead," "the first- 
fruits of them that slept." The resurrection was, at 
bottom, a moral, spiritual and unique triumph over both 
matter and spirit. It sprang from the atoning work of a 

392 



APPENDIX G 



Lord who was sinless and was an achievement essential 
to his transcendence over the sin-principle in man and its 
death-dealing effects. 

This resurrection was that of the God-man ; it created 
the Christian church and holds in itself the potency of the 
raising up to judgment of all men and the new-creation 
and glorification of all believers through corporeal resur- 
rection or translation ; it is also the guarantee of the final 
renewal of our entire cosmos, embracing the heavens and 
the earth. 

V. Of Christianity. — Christianity, truly conceived, is 
not merely, nor chiefly, the "ethics of Jesus," regarded as 
a pattern for our imitation — rather than goal. It is 
rather the apostolic interpretation of the significance of 
Christ's person and work in our behalf, foreshadowed at 
the end of his ministry. (See John 14-16 and following.) 
As such, Christianity is the supreme and absolute religion 
for all times and peoples. 

VI. Of Regeneration. — On account of sin in the 
human race, which in principle is universal and hereditary, 
there is a moral necessity for the begetting anew of all 
souls into Christ — "the last Adam," and the new Head of 
the race. 

This new birth, like the atonement, was in view "from 
before the foundation of the world," new-creation being 
but another term for redemption, as it takes effect on us. 
This birth is wrought by the Spirit of God, even below 
consciousness on our part, and is concurrent with repent- 
ance and faith. It is an effect, not on the constitution of 
man, but pre-eminently on his will, fundamentally altering 
his attitude Godward and also manward. 

VII. The New Testament Church. — This church is a 
body of persons renewed by the Holy Spirit through re- 
pentance and faith toward Christ as both Saviour and 
Lord, publicly baptized into Him, and voluntarily asso- 
ciated together for holy living, the maintenance of the 
ordinances, and devoted also in its corporate life to the 
propagation of the gospel throughout the world. 

The essential spiritual living, or Christian ethic re- 
ferred to, is not the futile, legalistic attempt to imitate the 

393 



APPENDIX G 



Lord Jesus in reference to God, together with the outward 
ordering among men of their social relations, but is, 
rather, a penitent, believing and surrendered response to 
the redeeming grace discovered in God's own vicarious 
attitude towards us. This response, moreover, in order 
to become effective, needs always to be empowered by the 
Holy Spirit for the realization of all forms of personal 
and social obligation implied in the redeemed life. 

VIII. Of the Officers of the Church. — The officers of 
the church are "elders," or "pastors" — sometimes termed 
"overseers" or "bishops" — and deacons. Their respective 
functions and duties are simply indicated in the Acts and 
the Pastoral Epistles. 

IX. Of the Ordinances of the Church. — The ordi- 
nances of the church (as regularly constituted) are two: 

1. Baptism, which is the voluntary and public immer- 
sion of the believer in water by an act which most fittingly 
symbolizes, first, the central event for faith in divine- 
human history, namely, the voluntary death, burial and 
resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord ; and, secondly, the 
profoundest possible human experience, namely, the dying 
to self and sin and the correlative spiritual quickening 
to newness of life in the risen Christ, and prophetic also 
of the believer's bodily glorification. 

2. The Lord's Supper, symbolizing the appropriation 
of the atoning death of Christ through reverent and fre- 
quent partaking of the broken "loaf" and the "fruit of 
the vine." 

The essential spiritual qualification for this is the dis- 
cernment or "setting apart" of the Lord's incarnate body 
with its several implications. This spiritual qualification 
is often relatively minimized in the interest of a cere- 
monial, but subordinate antecedent, namely water-baptism, 
obligatory as that baptism is. For apostolic interpretation 
of the proper evangelical attitude at the Lord's table, see 
1 Cor. 11 : 17-34. In the relation of these two ordinances 
there is a natural order, as fairly inferred from the impli- 
cations of the New Testament example and practice, and 
from the nature of things. This order, although but cere- 
monial, is a meaningful object-lesson and requisite to 

394 



APPENDIX G 



intelligent and complete loyalty to Christ's ideals on the 
part of the participant "until he come." 

X. Of the Freedom of Conscience. — The freedom, as 
between men, in all matters religious of the individual 
human conscience. 

This conscience, however, in relation to God and im- 
pliedly in relation to men, according to the terms of our 
redeemed status as set forth in Heb. 9: 13, 14, needs to be 
purged from legal and dead works re-created through an 
eternal Spirit and practically refounded in the being of 
God conceived as Redeemer. The natural conscience, as 
really as the mind, the heart or the will, needs to be re- 
newed and so related to a redeeming authority — the sacri- 
ficial Lord. 

XI. Of Church and State. — The realms of the religious 
and civil, as embodied in church and state, are formally 
separate, as different functions pertain to each. We 
are to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's 
and unto God the things that are God's." 

These diverse realms are in no conflict with each other, 
but move on different planes, and may be mutually sympa- 
thetic and co-operative. They have respect to two distinct 
authorities in man's constitution, the one embracing mat- 
ters of human government and social order and the other 
things religious and spiritual, Godward. 

XII. Of Voluntary Society Organization. — For pur- 
poses of expediency and efficiency in the expression and 
extension of the corporate Christ-life of the churches, 
various voluntary organizations for educational, mission- 
ary and fiscal purposes, such as have long existed and still 
exist among those who believe in the autonomy of the 
local church, especially for purposes of home and foreign 
missions in a variety of organizations the world over, are 
legitimate and permissible. 

Indeed, the rights of such voluntary organizations are 
presupposed by the voluntary principle which lies at the 
basis of any consistent Congregational or Baptist church 
polity. 

The activities expressed by these organizations have 
historically been known as those of the ecclesiola in ec- 

395 



APPENDIX G 



clesia; they are never to exercise other than advisory- 
functions ; they may not legislate for the local churches, 
nor in any way tyrannize over such churches, which are, 
in themselves, purely autonomous. 

The rights above referred to are highly consonant with 
New Testament precedents respecting polity; they pre- 
clude centralized power, so fruitful of corrupting tenden- 
cies in all past church history ; they contain the minimum 
of peril in organization and best further the upbuilding 
of the churches in their holy faith, and the most rapid dif- 
fusion of an unadulterated gospel throughout the world. 



396 



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